An earlier (and abridged)
version of this paper was presented at the 10th Colloquium of the
Societas Caucasologica Europæa, at the Univerity of Munich, 5
August 2000. I have profited greatly from the comments and criticisms
offered by Pat'i Antadze-Malashkhia, Pilip'e Baghiauri, P'aat'a
Bukhrashvili, Slava Chikiba, John Colarusso, Peter Golden, Michael
Job, Mzia Mak'alatia, Nunu Mindadze, Tinatin Ochiauri, David Testen,
Rémy Viredaz, although I remain responsible for any errors of
omission or commission. Any further comments, of course, will be much
appreciated.

In his History of the Caucasian
Albanians, the
Armenian historian Movses Dasxuranc‘i makes passing reference to
the "royal graves of the thunder-ch‘op‘ayk‘" as being among the idols and
sacred objects burnt by the so-called Huns (Honk' or Honastank') of the North Caucasus upon
their conversion to Christianity, an event said to have taken place in
the late 7th century.[1] In his notes to the English
translation of this passage, Dowsett (pp 165-6) links the lexeme ch‘op‘ay to coppay, the name of an Ossetic
"ceremonial dance around a victim struck by lightning, a refrain sung
at the burial of the same, and a rite at the time of drought", citing
the Ossetic dictionaries of Miller and Abaev. Dowsett's gloss refers
to the description, a few pages earlier in Dasxuranc'i's text, of some
"satanically deluded errors" symptomatic of the Huns' alleged
"northern dull-witted stupidity", among which is the belief that "if
flashes of thundering fiery lightning and ethereal fire struck a man
or some material object, they considered him or it to be some sort of
sacrifice to a god K‘u(w)ar" [Hist. Cauc. Alb: 155-6]. Dowsett's conjecture
has recently been cited by Golden [1998] in the context of a study of
the religious beliefs of the medieval Qipchags. Golden points out
supporting evidence from ethnographic accounts of rituals and
sacrifices in honor of the lightning and fertility deity Choppa (also
known as Elliri Choppa) among the Balkars and Karachays of the
northwest Caucasus, modern descendents of the Qipchags.

Besides the Ossetes and
Karachay-Balkars, other peoples of the West Caucasus performed, up to
the beginning of the past century at least, round dances around the
body of a person or animal struck by lightning, during which the
vocable choppa or cop(p)ay is repeatedly sung. Such
ceremonies have been described for the Abkhazians [Akaba 1984] and
Kabardians [Kantaria 1964, 1982]. In the song texts, choppa or its variant is juxtaposed
to the words ældar (variants elari, atlar) and Elia (var. Ilia), of which the
former means "lord" or "prince" in Ossetic [Abaev 1949: 63-64], and
the latter derives from the name of the prophet Elijah, whose
associations with rain and lightning in East European folklore are
well known [Ivanov/Toporov 1974; Ivanov 1991]. Unlike these two words, choppa and its variants are an
enigma. The ethnographic accounts invariably mention the semantic
opacity of the name of the ritual. In this section I will examine the
ethnographic data concerning the Ossetic, Kabardian, Abkhaz and
Karachay-Balkar choppa rituals. At the end of the
paper a possible source of the puzzling choppa lexeme will also be discussed.

I. 1. OSSETIC COPPAY.

The traveller Stöder was
in Digor Ossetia in 1781 when "a powerful thunderbolt killed a young
woman. After the strike those who came upon her cried out in joy, and
began to sing and dance around the dead body. All residents of the
village joined in the dancing circle, showing no concern that the
lightning continued to flash. Their single, simple refrain was 'O,
Elia, Elia! Ældari coppay'. They danced a round dance in
synchrony with the words, sometimes in this, sometimes in reverse
order, as one person sang out and the chorus took up the refrain. They
dressed the dead girl in new clothes, laid her in the same spot and in
the same position as when she was killed, and sang without interruption
until night. Her parents, sisters and husband danced, sang and seemed
as happy as if it were some festival. Grieving faces were considered a
sin against Elijah. This celebration lasted 8 days. They had a youth
who had been hit by lightning brought here. All those struck by
lightning who survived became servants and messangers of Elijah. Even
livestock that was struck by lightning was set free. The young man sang
and danced in a circle, then fell and began beating himself
convulsively. Between convulsions he became alert and with open eyes
recounted what he had seen in the company of Elijah, and named previous
lightning victims who were at Elijah's side. Then he transmitted
Elijah's orders concerning the dead. The most significant was the
command to keep a fire burning 8 days around the body and abstain from
all work and industry. The dead girl was placed in a coffin set atop a
platform for 8 days. On the 8th day they put her on a new oxcart, which
a pair of oxen with white spots were to pull. Young people along with
the relatives of the victim went in procession to neighboring
villages, singing and collecting gifts of livestock and other food
products. The gifts were for the victim, or the festivities, or for her
relatives. The coffin was finally set on the cart, to which the oxen
were harnessed, and they pulled it where they willed; the victim was to
be buried at the spot where they stopped. This time the oxen stopped at
the nearest grass. Straightaway they laid out a rectangle of stones to
a height of a couple feet, set the coffin on it and placed stones
around and upon it, making a mound about two meters high. Next to this
heap of stones they set up a pole with the stretched skin of a goat and
its head. Alongside it was a smaller pole on which they hung the best
clothing of the deceased, then by the tomb they consumed together the
gifts of food that they had gathered. The livestock of the victim were
set free on the steppes. These animals were marked, so that if one of
them approached the shepherds, it was driven away again" (transl. fr.
Russian version in Abaev 1958: 314-5).

I have quoted this passage in
full to introduce the reader to the ritual, and also because this text
includes most of the important details for which parallels have been
noted in other descriptions of the ritual. Another early attestation,
originally published by Gatiev in 1876 and translated by
Dumézil [1978: 67-69], also mentions the practice of villagers
gathering around the victim and singing "a nearly incomprehensible
song, the coppay", during which all known previous lightning-strike
victims are commemorated. The villagers keep vigil for three days
around
the body, in hopes that Wacilla [= St. Ilia (Elijah)] will revive the
victim. The body is then buried on the spot, although the close
relatives remain there for another three days, to dig the victim out in
case Wacilla brings him or her back to life. Should the rainstorm
continue longer than expected, or another person fall victim to a
thunderbolt, the body is dug up, set on a cart drawn by unguided oxen,
and reburied at the spot where the oxen stop. On the anniversary of
the death, the family of the deceased offers a communal feast by the
burial site, called ærvdzavdy kuvd "banquet of the
thunderstruck". Mention is also made of two poles from which is hung
the head and skin of a sacrificed goat, in the description of the
ritual performed should the victim survive. The poles are planted on
the spot where the bolt was believed to have touched ground, and the
sacrifice is repeated at the site each year by the family. Finally,
Abaev specifies that the coppay dance could also be performed
in times of drought to cause rain [op. cit.].

I. 2. KABARDIAN COP'AY

The Kabardian cop'ay ritual has been described in
detail by Medea Kantaria [1964: 87-89, 1982: 208-220], a Georgian
ethnographer who has done fieldwork on Kabardian agricultural
practices. The ritual is directed to the traditional thunder-lightning
deity Shyble, sometimes represented in the form of a fiery serpent, who
is invoked in prayers for rain, prosperity, and a good harvest. Should
a person be slain by a thunderbolt, no signs of mourning were
permitted; the survivors "consoled themselves with the knowledge that
Shyble had brought good fortune to their family by his touch". They
poured milk on the spot of the accident; milk was also used to put out
a fire caused by lightning.[2] The womenfolk performed a
round dance in honor of Shyble over 7 days, while singing a song to
this deity including the refrain : "cop'ai, elari, ilia" (elari < Ossetic Ældar,
perhaps via Georgian; ilia = Elijah). The menfolk,
meanwhile, sacrificed a grey goat and hung its skin on a pole, where
it remained throughout the 7 days of the ceremony. All present must
partake of the meat from the sacrifice. Most of Kantaria's sources
could not ascribe any meaning to the vocable cop'ay in the refrain. Some,
however,
equated it with the Khantseguashe "shovel-lady", a fetish used in
rain-making rituals. The object in question is a sort of mannequin made
by affixing women's clothing to a shovel. Women brought it to the
riverbank, planted it there, and splashed each other with water; the
menfolk meanwhile slaughtered a goat or sheep and prayed for rain. Its
efficacy could be enhanced by hanging the hearth-chain of a
lightning-strike victim around its 'neck'; rain could also be provoked
by pouring water over the chain. In general, special powers were
ascribed to objects linked to the lightning-strike victim. This was
particularly the case for stones from the gravesite, "to which
properties of Shyble were transferred", especially the property of
making rain. In times of drought, "they went to the victim's grave
reciting prayers", accompanied by members of the bereaved family. The
grave stone was pried open and propped up with a rock "while the
victim's relative prayed that the deceased would intercede with Shyble
to bring rain".

I. 3. ABKHAZIAN ATLAR-CHOPA

In a brief report of the
results of a field trip to Abkhazia, Abaev [1949: 316, 319] compared
Ossetic (Ældary) Coppay to Abkhaz Atlar-Chopa, a similar ritual
and song performed around the body of lightning-strike victims (human
or animal) [Inal-Ipa 1965: 531-533]. As described by Akaba [1984:
74-75], the ceremony is accompanied by the construction of a wooden
platform (asho´mk´'àt), on which is placed the meat
of a sacrificed goat. The unfinished meat was left on the platform,
and nearby a pole was erected on which the skin of the goat was hung;
both meat and skin remained until they rotted away. In some variants of
the ritual, songs were sung in honor of the lightning-god Afy (af-r-àshoa) or Airg´ (= St.
George; ayerg´-àshoa).[3] In one early-19th c.
description, it was the victim's body which was left atop the
platform, until complete decomposition. Should the person survive, he
or she was laid upon the platform, built to a height of 1 to 1.5
meters from nut-tree wood. The participants wore white and danced
around the victim singing the Atlar-Chopa, without showing signs of
distress.[4] A well-fed white goat was
sacrificed. It was widely believed that the survivor of a thunderbolt
strike received supernatural powers, and was considered a prophet. In
one account from the 1870's, cited by Akaba, the Atlar-Chopa was sung
in alternation between an elderly priest and the other participants.
The priest sang the words "Oy, atla chopa", to which the chorus
responded "Oy, ochou-para!". Then the elder sang "Atla choupa
Temurgvara", to which the response was "Vosa amara!" [op. cit, 75].
According to X. Xorosani, the original source for this description,
Temurgvara was the name of a deity, "represented by the Abkhazians in
the form of a white-haired old man, riding a winged horse, the
thumping of whose powerful hooves produced thunder, while lightning
flashed from the rider's bared sword". The origin of the name is
obscure; the description, however, fits Wacilla, the Ossetic Elijah,
who likewise spreads lightning and thunder when riding his mighty
steed [Kaloev 1971: 245].[5]

The Atlar-Chopa ceremony was
also performed as a cure for the mental illness known in Abkhaz as arshëshra "boiling", with symptoms
similar to St-Vitus-Dance — fever, convulsions — and affecting mostly
women.[6] The sick person is treated
with conciliation; in Akaba's words "every whim and desire of the
patient must be satisfied" [Akaba 1984: 71]. Family members, wearing
brightly-colored clothing and avoiding all outward display of grief,
maintain a day and night vigil at her bedside. Should there be a death
in the neighborhood, no mourning is performed and the burial takes
place quickly. In order to rid the patient of the illness, a ceremony
is performed in the forest, in which only men participate (except for
the sick person herself). The participants light wax candles in honor
of the chief god Antswa (ancoë rcoashizko' anëxa), and perform the Atlar-chopa
round dance, accompanied by the singing of that song, or the "song of
Antswa" (ancoë-r-ashoa).[7] A platform is erected, upon
which nut-tree leaves are spread. A year-old goat is sacrificed, and
its meat set on the platform, along with strips of white fabric. The
patient, dressed in white, kneels before the platform while a
celebrant prays to the chief god to send down health to her. The
patient is escorted back to the village, whereas the other
participants remain at the site, feast on the sacrificed meat, bread
and polenta (they are forbidden to drink wine, however). Any remaining
food is left in the forest; under no circumstances must it be brought
back to the village. In some parts of Abzhui Abkhazia, the curing
ritual is performed in the church of St. George at Ilor, especially on
the feastday of its patron saint (23 April, O. S.). A sheep is
sacrificed in lieu of a goat; it is also believed that there should be
lightning, thunder and rain on that day.According
to Inal-Ipa [1965: 532-533], mental derangement and some other
illnesses were attributed by Abkhazians to "visits" by the
lightning-god Afy to particular households. In order to know how to
deal
with the problem, recourse was had to a seer (ac'aa7oë), usually female, who had
already been visited by Afy, and in whom "a higher power was present".
In the case examined by Inal-Ipa, the seer recommended the sacrifice
of a white goat. The ceremony took place on a hilltop. The meat of the
goat was cooked while a hymn to the deity was song three times, then
it was set on a sort of small platform, covered with alder branches,
by the legs of the patient. With the other participants in a
half-circle around her, the seer cried out: "Great lord Afy! Today,
having slaughtered a spotless goat and done all that is possible, we
serve you. And I, unworthy one, ask you to release her whom you deigned
to visit".

Akaba classifies the
Atlar-Chopa with a handful of seldom-performed Abkhazian rituals which
likewise took place by an ashoëmk´'at (platform) erected in the
forest, far from the village. One of these is a ceremony performed
every 3-5 years at Eastertime in honor of the supreme god Antswa(ancoë rnëxara). In addition to a sacrificed
lamb or goat eaten on the spot, the remaining meat of which could not
be brought back to the village, other livestock was released into the
forest [Akaba 1967: 40-41; 1984: 69-71].[8] Only men from the local
kingroup were allowed to participate. Less is known, unfortunately,
about another, more secret forest ritual performed but once every
20-30 years for a supernatural being known only by the tantalizing
description "the one who knows us but whom we cannot know".

I. 4. KARACHAY CHOPPA.

In the traditional religious
system of the Turkic-speaking Karachays, Choppa "is the name of a
fertility deity of thunder and lightning … Considered second to Teyri
in importance, there was an annual spring holiday in his honor and
sacred rocks (choppany
tashy) were
associated with him. It has also been suggested that the cult of
Elijah became identified with him (Elliri choppa). The etymology of
this term is unclear" [Golden 1998: 210-1]. The choppa ritual, featuring the
sacrifice of a goat, the stretching of its skin on a pole, and the
performance of a round dance around stones upon which the meat was
placed, was enacted on a number of occasions related to weather
phenomena, agriculture and an individual's life cycle [Karaketov
1995]. It was performed around victims of lightning strike or mental
illness, on the occasion of the first thunder of the year, and before
beginning important agricultural tasks (harvest, threshing, etc.). The
ceremony could also mark childbirth, marriage or funerals. The deity
Choppa was the second-in-command and active principle in earthly
affairs, representing the distant sky god Teyri ( < Tengri, the name
of the Altaic sky god).

I. 5. THE "CHOPPA COMPLEX"

To conclude this opening
section, I will summarize the principal features of the "choppa
complex" as presented in the accounts cited above:

(a) Lightning strike as
fortunate event.
Most variants mention that
the lightning-strike victim's family regarded (or were expected to act
as though they regarded) the event as fortunate, or as a sign of divine
election. Mourning and displays of grief were forbidden, for fear of
provoking the anger of the lightning god. White or brightly-colored
clothing was to be worn, rather than the black appropriate to a
funeral. Thunderstruck victims who survived were considered prophets
in the service of the deity who struck them.

(b) Platform. Most variants also specify
that a platform was erected on the spot of the accident, made of the
wood of certain trees (hazel, walnut, alder) and covered with leaves
and branches from the same type of tree. Inal-Ipa [1965: 547-8] and
Charachidzé [1981a] conjecture that the setting of the victim's
body on a platform "évoque les pratiques funéraires que
plusieurs auteurs de l'Antiquité ont décrites chez les
habitants de la Colchide [= modern-day Abkhazia and Mingrelia, more or
less — KT] … D'après Apollonios de Rhodes, au IIIe siècle
av. J.-C., les Colques tenaient pour impie de brûler ou d'inhumer
les corps des défunts masculins. Ils les enveloppaient d'une
peau de boeuf non tannée et les fixaient en haut d'un arbre avec
des cordes". Travellers to Abkhazia as recently as the 17th and 18th
centuries noted the practice of attaching the bodies of men to the
branches of trees, whereas the bodies of women were buried. (Even now,
women's bodies are buried several inches deeper than men's [Benet 1974:
88]). A visitor to Circassia in the 15th century noted that victims of
lightning strike were considered sacred, and their bodies were hung
from trees for three days, while dances and sacrifices were performed;
similar practices were described in Abkhazia [Inal-Ipa 1965: 548;
1971: 32-34].

(c) Body of deceased and
sacrifice left in forest. Among the Ossetes of the late
19th century "wherever a mountaineer might die, he was buried in the
clan cemetery or mausoleum; they would attempt to obtain the bodies of
those who died away from their homeland or in captivity … either
through ransom or even the exchange of living persons for them, in
order
that they might be buried in their own cemeteries" [Kaloev 1989: 146].
A
similar belief in the capital importance of burial in one's family
burial ground was shared by the Caucasian peoples to the east and west
of Ossetia. It is all the more striking then, that the Ossetes
expressly forbade that the corpses of
lightning-strike victims be buried in the village cemetery, for fear
of offending Wacilla [Kaloev 1971: 245]. The victims' bodies were
buried on the spot of their death, or at a place chosen by the deity
acting through unguided oxen yoked to a cart carrying the body. This
taboo on re-entering the space of the village extended to beasts as
well. Animals struck by lightning, if they survived, were driven away
into the wilderness. This was also done to the herds belonging to a
lightning-strike victim, which in addition were marked so that
shepherds
would not mistakenly incorporate them back into their flocks. The meat
of sacrificed animals was to be eaten on the spot; any leftovers had to
be left behind in the forest. In some cases it was specified that the
uneaten meat was left on the wooden platform, whereas the head and skin
of the sacrifice was hung from a pole planted in the ground nearby. In
some variants, there is the additional "sacrifice" of livestock
released into the forest. Presumably these unfortunate beasts would end
up as dinner for wolves or other predators. Several ethnographic
descriptions emphasize the interdiction on bringing the sacrificed meat
back into the village. These practices reveal, first, the parallel
treatment of the victims of a thunderbolt and the animals sacrificed
subsequently; secondly, the sharp distinction between the domesticated
space of the village and its immediate surroundings (fields and
pastures), and those areas beyond it [Charachidzé 1968; Tuite
1998, 1999].[9] The victims touched by the
lightning god could not be brought back into the profane space of the
village because they were too "sacred" in both ancient senses of the
word — consecrated to a deity, and charged with a dangerous force
which puts them off-limits to humans [Benveniste 1969: 187-192].

(d) Goat sacrifice. In those accounts specifying
the type of animal to be sacrificed, either on the occasion of a
person or animal struck by a thunderbolt, or in general to appease the
anger of the storm god, the preferred offering is a goat. In the
context of those traditional Caucasian religious systems for which we
have sufficient evidence concerning the differential use of sacrificed
animals — most notably those of Abkhazia and Ossetia[10] — the goat is offered to
powerful, potentially dangerous supernatural beings. While the animal
chosen for sacrifice at most ceremonial occasions is a sheep, cow or
bull, goats are offered to those which are particularly prone to
punitive action, or who behave in unpredictable ways. At the same
time, Abkhazian and Ossetian evidence points to a degree of extension
of the high symbolic value attributed to wild caprids — ibex and
mountain goats — to their domestic cousins. The Ossetes sacrificed
goats on such solemn occasions as the resolution of a blood feud or a
ceremony atop one of their holy mountains [Basilov & Kobychev 1976:
153-154]. The Abkhazian writer D. Gulia ascribed a veritable "goat
cult" to his ancestors, noting the image of a goat on the medieval
Abkhazian flag [Inal-Ipa 1965: 207], and the practice of slaughtering a
goat rather than a sheep or bull when receiving an honored guest.[11] He also specified that a
castrated goat (ashto'à) was offered "to avoid the
anger of powerful gods" [Gulia 1928: 288]. Goat sacrifices, often
performed far from the village, were intended to appease such
redoubtable supernaturals as Sh´ashoë, god of blacksmiths,
"golden Zasxan", bringer of smallpox, the lightning-god Afy, regarded
by Gulia as "the highest of all gods" [1928: 287], and the supreme
deity Antswa. It is important to note that the Abkhazians of a century
ago believed that "one and the same god might be good or evil in
relation to a given person, depending on whether that individual
accurately fulfilled his or her obligations to the god. The only way
to behave toward an angry god is sincere repentance and sacrifice" [N.
S. Janashia, cited by Gulia 1928: 287]. The sacrifice called for in
such circumstances is a goat.

(e) Round dance. In the traditional cultures
of
the peoples of the Caucasus, as in many other regions of Eurasia,
solemn occasions are marked by round dancing. The Circassian dance udzh, perfomed by Kabardian women
on the spot of a lightning strike, is described as an "ancient round
dance with slow, solemn music", perfomed on such occasions as
weddings, celebrations of victory in battle, and religious ceremonies
[Shu 1964]. Much of the mythological poetry of highland Georgia
(Pkhovi and Svaneti in particular) was sung while dancing in a circle,
or while circumambulating a shrine [Charachidzé 1968: 703-712;
Tuite 1994: 140-144]. Major 'pagan' festivals are punctuated by round
dances, especially at the end of the day's festivities, when the
participants leave the shrine complex (usually situated some distance
from the village), and begin to make their way homeward.[12]

(f)Rain-making. The choppa ritual and its
variants may also be performed in the hope of causing rain in times of
drought, or, conversely, to ward off damage from excessive rain or
hail. This implies an equation of the supernatural being causing
lightning with that responsible for storms, rain and hail, and a
representation of the ritual as being intended to induce a potentially
harmful deity to behave in ways helpful to the community.[13]

(g) Mental illness and prophecy. Several descriptions
associate
the choppa complex with the gift of prophecy, and with temporary or
chronic mental derangment. On the one hand, survivors of a lightning
strike are said to acquire the capacity to convey messages from the
lightning god to the human community. The last fortune-teller (dashni) of the Ossetian village
Lesgor, who died in the early 20th century, began his service after
being struck by lightning no less than three times and surviving
[Basilov & Kobychev 1976: 138]. Some of these messengers, such as
the young man summoned to the scene of a lightning death in
Stöder's account, undergo convulsions while prophesying. On the
other hand, in Abkhazia and Chegem Karachaya, the choppa ritual is
prescribed as a treatment for St. Vitus dance and similar disorders,
marked by compulsive, uncontrolled body movements [Karaketov 1995: 45].
In Ossetic, as Abaev notes in his entry under the word coppaj, the word is employed in
expressions denoting agitation or aimless motion: coppaj kænyn "shatatjsja tuda-sjuda"
(stagger, sway, loaf about); dywwærdæm
coppaj kæny "taskaetsja tuda-sjuda" (walk
with difficulty, drag o.s. along); coppaj-wærædæs
kænuncæ "naxodjatsja v sumjatice,
dvizhenii" (be in turmoil, in movement).[14] Studies of indigenous
Caucasian ethnomedicine [Mindadze 1981] have pointed to a distinction
between those illnesses caused by physical causes or injuries, and
those attributed to the action of gods, spirits or demons. Among the
latter are those disorders reflecting the possession of the victim by
a spirit, including certain psychic illnesses and also diseases such
as smallpox. There is thus a fine line between the appropriation of a
human by a spirit in order to exploit the former as a mouthpiece for
the latter, and the possession of that person as punishment or as
sacrifice. Regardless of the cause, the afflicted person — or rather
the spirit residing within him or her — is treated with cautious
solicitude. It was mentioned earlier that no one was to show signs of
distress in the presence of a patient suffering from arsh´shra, and that her desires were to
be complied with. Young victims of smallpox, measles and other
contagious childhood diseases received similar treatment in lowland
Georgia and in Ossetia, since this disease was attributed to
possession by spirits (referred to in Georgian by the euphemistic bat'onebi "the lords"). The children
and
their indwelling tormentors were entertained with songs, feasting,
bright colors and decorations, in the hope that the "lords" would be
persuaded to leave the children unharmed [Charachidzé 1987:
48-60; Tuite 1994: 131-2; Mindadze 2000]. As in the case of lightning
strike, the Ossetes did not mourn for victims of smallpox, for fear of
antagonizing Alardy, their smallpox god, imagined as a sky-dwelling
deity who descends on a silver ladder to scatter death and
disfigurement. Alardy is associated with St. John the Baptist (Oss. Fydwan, Fyd Iwan) [Kaloev 1971: 254-5; Testen
2000], a figure who takes on many of the same functions as Elijah in
the folk Christianity of Eastern Europe.[15]

(h) Profile of deities invoked. When a deity is invoked in
the
performance of the choppa ritual, it is in most cases one of the local
avatars of Elijah (Ilia, Elia, Wac-illa); other names mentioned include
Abkhaz Afy and Circassian Shyble, who are likewise gods of lightning,
thunder and storms. Akaba mentions similar rituals being performed in
honor of the chief Abkhaz deity Antswa, as well as the shadowy "one who
knows us but whom we cannot know". These are powerful deities, who
assure the prosperity of the community by sending down life-giving
rain, but whose thunderbolts can wreak death and destruction. Those
struck by their bolts, however, are not so much punished as appropriated:those
who survive enter the god's service as prophets, those who succumb are
believed to be in the deity's company in the afterlife. The
tree-burial practiced by the ancient Colchians and their Abkhazian
descendants, as well as the setting of victims on wooden platforms,
appears to have been a means of separating the victims from the earth
and placing them closer to the sky, with the goal of enabling the
celestial deity to appropriate their souls into his service in the
afterlife.[16]

The Abkhaz and Rach'an
(Georgian) descriptions mention the invocation of two local "St.
Georges", Airg´ [a-yirg´ < *a-g´erg´ <
**a-giorgi] and Giorgi respectively. In Mountain Rach'a, people prayed
to Elia for rain in times of drought, whereas Giorgi was invoked to
protect crops from hail. That is, the storm god Elia was asked to
release one of the elements under his control for the benefit of the
village, whereas Giorgi's function was conceived as primarily
defensive: warding off a natural element already released by its
patron. (Interestingly, Elia is sometimes represented by Georgians as
a well-intentioned but blind spirit incapable of seeing where the hail
he scatters will fall [Chikovani 1972: 255]). The contrast between
Elia and Giorgi is in fact consistent with the functions of his
equivalents elsewhere in traditional Georgian culture, a point to
which we will return later.

As an unpredictable,
dangerous, fire- and sometimes death-bringing bolt from the sky,
lightning is featured in the religious thought of many peoples the
world over. In some cases, however, quite similar clusters of beliefs
appear to have arisen independently of the choppa complex, of which I
will cite one example here. The Nuer people of the Sudan, according to
the description of their religious system by Evans-Pritchard [1956:
52-62], believed that the souls of persons struck by lightning or lost
in a whirlwind were "taken by God into the sky" and transformed into
spirits know as colwic. Some lightning victims came
to be regarded as tutelary spirits of their father's or husband's
lineages, and as such were called on for aid against enemies. To be
slain by lightning was a sign of divine election: "When a person is
killed by lightning, Nuer are resigned … The death is not a punishment
for some fault but a mysterious act of divine will … In the case of a colwic, God has chosen a particular
person for himself, and taken him with his own hand. Nuer say that the
chosen person has entered into kinship, or friendship, with God".[17] As in the western Caucasus,
the victim does not receive an ordinary burial. He or she is interred
in a funeral mound with a shrine-stake in middle, on which the head,
hooves, entrails and some of the skin of a sacrificed black ox are
suspended. The sacrifice is said to assure that the soul of the colwic remains in the sky and does
not return bringing misfortune and death to the survivors.

Closer to the Caucasus —
sufficiently close and sufficiently connected by pathways of cultural
contact that common origin cannot be ruled out — are Greece and the
Balto-Slavic region. There is evidence from ancient texts that the
Greeks considered the spot where lightning struck [ene:lúsion] as ábaton "not to be trodden [by
profane
feet]" or ápsausta "untouchable, sacred", and
the
victim killed by a thunderbolt as "tabu, vom Gott ausgezeichnet, dem
normalen Menschendasein entrückt" [Burkert 1961; cp. Cook 1965
II: 21-22]. In other words, such a person became hierós — which like Latin sacer means both "holy" and "taboo"
—, as was said of the body of Kapaneus, struck down by Zeus at the
walls of Thebes [Euripides Suppliants, 935].[18] The hero Herakles was
elevated
to the status of an Olympian immortal after a thunderbolt thrown by his
father Zeus onto his funeral pyre burnt away his mortal parts [Cook
1965 II: 23-29; Nagy 1990: 139-141]. In former times Lithuanians
believed that those struck by lightning from a thunderstorm heading
west died as favorites of God, whereas those killed by a thunderstorm
heading east died on account of their sins [Mannhardt Letto-Preussische
Götterlehre, p. 538, cited by Nagy 1990:
197]. Among the Slavs "a person or tree struck by lightning was
regarded as being filled with health-giving powers" [Gimbutas 1971:
166].

Let us consider these facts in
the context of anthropological theories of sacrifice and possession.
According to one of the most widely-cited definitions, proposed a
century ago by the French sociologists Hubert and Mauss, sacrifice
serves to establish "une communication entre le monde sacré et
le monde profane par l'intermédiaire d'une victime
détruite au cours d'une cérémonie" [1899/1968:
302]. Although more recent investigations of sacrifice have emphasized
other aspects of the practice, such as the nature of the exchange
between gods and humans, or have attempted to elucidate the meanings
symbolized by the offering, the ritual, the context of performance,
and so forth,[19] I will focus here on some
implications of the sacrifice-as-communication view. In a study of
possession cults in Africa, Zempléni [1987] noted that Hubert
and Mauss' definition could apply equally well to spirit possession.
Many studies of the latter phenomenon have noted that the possessed
individual is conceived as a site of contact between the supernatural
and human realms, whether or not he or she serves as a spokesperson
for the possessing spirit. Zempléni goes further, emphasizing,
in his review of the ethnographic data, the suppression of the
possessed's human personality in favor of that of the spirit, which
dwells within the victim's body, makes her physically and/or mentally
ill, feeds off her blood and flesh, even rides her like a horse [op.
cit.: 285]. The victims become "des êtres sacrificiels 'mis à mort'
répétitivement par leur invisible 'époux' ou
'cavalier' auquel elles sont irrévocablement liées"; the
possessed person's trances, induced periodically during religious
ceremonies "sont des oblations rituelles et
réitérées de sa personne au dieu auquel il a
été voué" [op. cit., 312; italics in original].
Without in any way denying the validity of Zempléni's
conclusions, I would like to point out another characteristic shared by
sacrifice and possession, which seems particularly useful for the
Caucasian materials examined here. It is well known that many
descriptions of sacrifice represent it as a division of the victim into two
portions, one of which is appropriated by the god(s), the other of
which remains in the possession of the human participants. Some such
accounts, such as the Hesiodic myth of the institution of sacrifice by
Prometheus, specify the division of the visible parts of the offering
between the two parties; that part given to the gods may be burnt,
spilt (e.g. blood) or left uneaten. In some cultures, such as that of
the Nuers, it is primarily the invisible portion of the sacrifice, the
animal's life, which is believed to be taken by the god, whereas the
carcass remains for the use of the sacrifiers [Evans-Pritchard 1956:
214]. Cultures also differ concerning the imagined role of the two
parties in the act of division. In Hesiod's account, the inaugural
partition of the victim is made before the gods take their part; in
traditional Hawaiian sacrifice, by contrast, the god is thought to
"devour" and incorporate the entire offering, then return a portion to
the sacrificers [Valeri 1985: 71]. In at least some folk theories of
possession, I argue here, the possessed is likewise divided into two
portions, one of which is appropriated — temporarily or permanently —
by the spirit, whereas the rest is considered to be still in the
"ownership" of the person involved. This appropriation can take the
form of exploiting the possessed as a mouthpiece, or as mental or
physical illness. Some of the African cases discussed by
Zempléni describe the indwelling spirit as a sort of parasite,
consuming the victim's flesh and blood from within. In a Wolof ceremony
described by the same author, a possessed woman holds a goat or cow
against her body, with the intention of inducing the spirit to quit her
body and enter that of the animal, which is subsequently killed. One
victim is substituted for another; furthermore, the animal victim is
killed, yielding it (or a portion of it) definitively to the spirit.

It is my belief that the
Caucasian ethnographic materials presented above yield evidence of a
conception of sacrifice, possession and lightning death as
fundamentally the same order of phenomenon, that is, the total or
partial appropriation of an animal or person by a supernatural being,
which may use the former for his or her purposes. Consider first the
numerous parallels in the conception of the lightning victim and that
of
a sacrificed animal. In one of the oldest sources quoted above, Movses
Dasxuranc'i attributed to the Huns the belief that if lightning "struck
a man or some material object, they considered him or it to be some
sort of sacrifice to a god K'u(w)ar" [Hist. Cauc. Alb: 155-6]. In the
modern variants of the choppa ceremony as well, the victim's body and
that of the animal slaughtered in the ritual are treated in similar
fashion. Both may be placed upon the platform, and both must be left
behind after the participants return home: the uneaten goat meat is
left to rot or be eaten by birds, the victim's body is buried on the
spot or at a location chosen at random. By no means may the meat be
brought back to the village, or the victim's corpse be buried in the
village cemetery. In other words, both the remains of the victim slain
by lightning and the uneaten portions of the animal slaughtered by the
participants in the ritual were regarded as having been appropriated by
the lightning god. As in ancient Greece, the fact of having been
appropriated by a powerful and potentially dangerous deity rendered the
victims ápsausta "untouchable, sacred", off
limits to the human community. It should also be mentioned that the
Hunnic and modern choppa ceremonies were performed for livestock and
objects, as well as people, hit by lightning, implying that it was the
act of appropriation of the victim by the god which was the criterial
factor: it was as though the god took the initiative of seizing an
offering, rather than waiting for the community to perform a sacrifice
in his honor.

The final piece of evidence to
be considered in this section is chronologically the earliest. In a
passage cited by Charachidzé [1981b] as proof that possession
was known in some areas of the Caucasus 2000 years ago, the Greek
geographer Strabo [Geography XI, 4, 7] describes the
religious practices at one of the chief sanctuaries of the Caucasian
Albanians (Albano’,dwelling in what is know
Azerbaijan) as follows:

"As for gods, they adore the
Sun, Zeus and Selene (= the moon), most of all, the moon. Its
sanctuary is located near Iberia (= a kingdom in eastern Georgia —
KT). The officiating priest is most revered after the king. He has
authority over the sacred territory, which, like that of the king, is
large and well-populated, and also over the servants of the temple, of
whom many go into trances and prophecy [kaì tô:n
hierodoúlo:n, hô:n enthousiô:si polloì kaì prophe:teúousin]. If one of these, in a state
of powerful possession, wanders alone in the forest [ep“ pléon
katáskhetos genómenos planâtai
katà tàs húlas mónos], the priest captures him,
binds him with a sacred chain, and feeds him generously throughout the
year. Then he leads him to the sacrifice celebrated in honor of the
goddess [eis
tè:n thusian tê:s theoû], where, having anointed him
with perfumes, he sacrifices him along with the other victims. The
sacrifice takes place as follows: bearing the sacred lance which
custom reserves only for human sacrifices, a person comes out of the
crowd, advances toward the victim and strikes him in the side through
to the heart, not without having learned how beforehand. When the
victim falls, they make predictions by the manner in which he falls,
which they announce publicly. Then the body is transported to a place
where all come to step on it with their feet, which serves as a rite
of purification."

There is much about this
passage which remains a puzzle for scholars of Caucasian ethnohistory,
nor is it clear how literally the description is to be interpreted. Of
interest to us here are four elements which can be compared to the
choppa complex: (1) possession attributed to a celestial deity — here,
the goddess of the moon; (2) the possessed going into a trace and
prophesying; (3) the possessed wandering in the forest (i.e. outside
of the domesticated space of the village); (4) the victim finally
being put to death as a sacrifice to the same deity responsible for
the possession. Although lightning does not play a role, and the victim
is killed by a fellow human and not by an act of God, the parallels are
sufficiently close to merit consideration. In particular, the
possessed prophet is equated with a sacrificial victim in the most
concrete manner imaginable. The sacrifice (or appropriation) takes
place stepwise, however. At first the goddess takes partial possession
of the victim, making him her prophet. Then she draws him into the
forest, away from human society, and therefore even further into her
possession. Finally, the priest who acts in her service captures the
possessed person, fattens hims up and then brings him to be sacrificed,
completing the process. It is as though the two possible outcomes of a
lightning strike — death of the victim, or election as prophet of the
lightning god — are here represented as two stages in a process
affecting the same victim.

III.
Slavic Kupala and
Georgian K'op'ala.

III. 1. EAST SLAVIC KUPALA AND
HIS ANTECEDENTS.

The East Slavic summer
festival of Ivan
Kupala takes
place on the eve of the feastday of St. John the Baptist (23-24 June,
O. S.). Old Church Slavic kõpati and its descendents in the
modern Slavic languages (such as Russian kupat´) mean "baptize", also
"bathe, dunk in water". The use of this root to designate John the
Baptist in Slavic seems straightforward, but the Kupala ceremony has
relatively little to do with the Biblical desert prophet. In rural
Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia, the festival is marked by the lighting
of bonfires (called kupalo in some areas [Ivanov/Toporov
1974: 224]), which young people jump across, and the making of simple
straw dolls, which are either burnt in the bonfire or thrown in the
river [Rybakov 1987: 127-129, 153-155; 1994: 326-327]. The dolls as
well are called kupa[j]lo ("solomennoe chuchelo,
szhigaemoe vý Ivanovskuju noch´" [Preobrazhenskij 1959 I:
414; cp Zelenin 1991: 396-399]); the purpose of tossing them in the
river is either to ward off drought, or to predict whence a girl's
future husband will come (from the direction toward which the doll
floats [Propp 1963: 83]). In a detailed and richly-documented study of
the symbolism associated with the Ivan Kupala festival, Ivanov and
Toporov [1974: 217-242; 1991e] demonstrate that the figure of Ivan
Kupala, like other mythological personages across Central-Eastern
Europe and Western Asia named after John the Baptist or the prophet
Elijah, is the superficially Christianized avatar of the storm and
lightning god known to many Indo-European-speaking peoples. Elijah's
alleged ability to cause drought and rain [1 Kings 17:1-18:46], call
down lightning from heaven to consume his sacrifice [1 Kings 18: 38]
and destroy his adversaries [2 Kings 1: 9-14], and finally his
assumption to heaven in a chariot of fire [2 Kings 2: 11-12] made him
perfectly suitable for superposition onto the role of a lightning and
storm god. On the basis of tradition and a handful of indications in
the Bible [Mark 8: 28, 9: 12-13; John 1: 25; Luke 1: 17; Matthew 11:
13-14, 17: 10-12], John was widely regarded in popular Christianity as
the prophet Elijah returned to earth [Averincev 1991].

Associated with the numerous
past and contemporary manifestations of the IE storm god are such
motifs as the symbolic conjunction or opposition of fire and water;
patronage of fertility, especially grain production; and a mythic
cycle featuring the Storm God and a serpent or monster, which the god
defeats in order to release livestock or water for the benefit of
human society. (This latter tale is considered by Ivanov and Toporov
[1991d], and also by Lincoln [1981], as one of the foundational myths
of early Indo-European social ideology). The pre-Christian antecedant
of Ivan Kupala among the Slavs was most likely the storm deity known as
Perun= in the Old Russian chronicles. By name, function and symbolism
Slavic Perun= has been linked by scholars to an ancient cluster of
significations and motifs attached to the PIE root *per-(kw)-u- "strike". Reflexes of this
root appear in various IE languages with meanings including "storm and
lightning god" (Balto-Slavic), "oak tree" (Latin quercus; possibly Celtic (h)ercynia; note also the location of
pagan Slavic sanctuaries to Perun= in oak groves); "lightning" (Baltic perkunas; one possible etymology of
Greek keraunós); "mountain, rock" (Hittite,
Indic) [Gamkrelidze/Ivanov 1984: 792-794; Ivanov/Toporov 1991f, 1991g;
Jakobson 1985b; Nagy 1990: 181-201]. In traditional Baltic and Slavic
religion, as reconstructed by Ivanov & Toporov [1991a, 1991h],
Jakobson [1985a, 1985b] and Puhvel [1989: 222-238], Perkunas-Perun=
had many of the attributes of a chief god, either in his own right or
as principal representative of an invisible and unreachable deus
otiosus. As recently as 1734, the semi-pagan Balts celebrated the cult
of their lightning god "Swats Parkauns" ("Saint Perkunas") on the
feast-day of John the Baptist [Biezais 1975: 341]. Elliptical Greek
references to the belief, already archaic and discredited in classical
times, that humans originated "from oak or from stone" (apò druós … apò pétre:s [Odyssey T 162]), attest to
the association of *per-(kw)-u- with fertility, as do the
old Lithuanian folk beliefs that lightning could beget children where
it struck [Nagy 1990: 196-201; cp Puhvel 1989: 226-227]. The Latvian
deity Perkons was believed to assure abundant crops of grains,
especially rye, barley and hops [Biezais 1975: 342-343]. In other IE
traditions as well, storm gods were invoked for rain and/or good
harvests (e.g. Scandinavian Thor as patron of cereals), and to insure
fertility (Indra bringer of "prosperity, harvest, longevity, masculine
force, wealth, livestock" [Toporov 1991]).

Returning to the Caucasus, we
find parallels to components of the Indo-European storm god complex in
Ossetic religion, where one would expect to find them, and in
neighboring traditions. The Ossetic Wacilla, as Dumézil has
demonstrated, continues numerous features shared by IE war-and-storm
deities such as Indra and Thor.[20] In addition to purely
meteorological functions, Wacilla is celebrated in Ossetic folklore as
a slayer of demons and protector of people and livestock against evil
spirits. In particular, the Ossetes would invoke him each New Year's
Eve for protection against the kurysdzæutæ, dangerous spirits who rule
over the kurys, "une prairie mythique
où poussent les semences de toutes les productions de la terre,
et aussi le bonheur et le malheur" [Dumézil 1978: 67-74]. This
luxurious, otherworldly prairie — cognate, according to Ivanov and
Toporov, with the Greek Elysian Fields and Scandinavian Valhalla
—appears to be descended from a topos in the archaic Indo-European
storm-god cycle [1991d]. The serpent, adversary of the storm god, is
represented as possessing vast herds of livestock, which it keeps on a
wide meadow in the underworld. The storm god does battle with the
monster and finally slays it, freeing the animals. The opposition
betwen the storm god (Wacilla) and the proprietors of the "Elysian
Fields" is retained in the Ossetic materials, albeit in attenuated
form. Another function of Wacilla which is probably inherited from his
IE forebear is that of assuring an abundant grain harvest. One of the
chief festivals in honor of Wacilla is called xory bon "cereal day"; Ossetic women,
for whom the name of this deity is taboo, refer to him by the
paraphrase xory
xicau "ma”tre
du blé" [Benveniste 1959: 140]. The
Northwest-Caucasian-speaking Abazas likewise invoke their lightning
god for a rich harvest of cereal crops [Pershits 1989: 224].

Deities with comparable
attributes are featured in the traditional religious systems of other
Caucasian communities, even though the choppa ritual is not known to
have been practiced there. One such case is Mingrelian zhini antar, "Upper (celestial) Antar",
whose name was compared by Javaxishvili [1960: 122-123] to that of
Abkhaz Aytar (the shift /n/ > /l/ > /y/ is attested elsewhere in
Mingrelian, cp. mayazoni < malazoni < Geo. monazoni < "monk"). Antar has been
equated by Abak'elia [1991: 6-26] with the personages invoked in
various rituals under the names zhinishi orta, "Orta [= "portion"?] from
above", simply zhinishi "the one above", or Jgege, the Mingrelian St. George.
Prayers and offerings (especially of roosters or goats) are made to
Antar/Orta/George in times of lightning strike, excessive rain or
drought; to insure a good harvest; and for healing from certain
illnesses, especially psychological ones. St. George of Ilor, one of
West Georgia's holiest shrines, is also called upon to witness oaths
and to curse oath-breakers. Lightning was believed to be the preferred
weapon of St. George for pursuing unclean spirits, punishing those who
offended him, and for selecting individuals as "servants" (These
servants always wore white or colored clothing, even when in mourning.
Abak'elia notes that "servants of the one above" [zhinishi maxvameri] are called upon to pray for
the protection of people and property from lightning). The place where
lightning struck is called najvarleni in Mingrelian (lit. "spot
where a cross [jvari] had been"), since lightning
was believed to fall either in the form of a cross or that of a
split-tipped arrow [bordzal], another weapon associated
with St. George. Objects struck by lightning were not to be used or
even touched. for fear of provoking the deity's anger [Abak'elia loc. cit.].

The Weinax (Chechen and
Ingush) supreme deity S(t)ela or Seli is represented as a particularly
touchy and frequently hostile weather-god. He is armed with the rainbow
as a bow, and lightning bolts as arrows, and is imagined as the source
of snow, hail and other extreme weather phenomena. In the springtime
month named for him (Seli-but "month/moon of Seli") he is
invoked
in prayers for rain and a good harvest. At the same time, Weinax
legends describe how Seli punished various heroes and gods — including
his son Elta, the divine patron of cereals and wild animals — for
providing people with the means for existence: livestock, water, grain
and fire [Tankiev 1991; Mal´sagov 1991; B. Dalgat 1893: 107-117;
U. Dalgat 1972: 54-55, 258-260]. The 19th-century ethnographer B. Dalgat [op. cit.] compared
Seli to Ossetic Wacilla. Furthermore, "those killed by lightning were
considered blessed. According to the Ingush, if people mourn for such
a victim, the body will turn black in color. The place where a person
or animal was killed by lightning is considered holy, and each year a
sacrifice to Seli is performed there".[21]

Although the Karachays and
Balkars are speakers of a Turkic language, their lightning god Choppa
(or Elliri Choppa) is marked by features likely to stem from an IE
source. He is described as a fertility deity, second in importance to
the chief god Teyri; the IE warrior and storm gods (Dumézil's
"second function") are likewise subordinate to the sovereign *deiwos-pater "bright-sky-father", and many
are invoked for fertility. The choppa ritual performed on the occasion
of the first thunder of the year ("opening of the celestial vaults")
features jumping over bonfires, the burning of Choppa dolls, and other
practices reminiscent of the East Slavic Ivan Kupala festival
[Karaketov 1995]. The same is true of the rain-making rituals
associated with Kabardian cop'ay. The Khantseguashe
"shovel-lady" fetish brought by women to the riverbank, where they
splash each other with water while the men pray for rain, is almost
certainly connected — directly or indirectly — with the Slavic kupa(j)lo doll. Similar rain-making
rituals, involving a doll or fetish dunked in water, are known in
Georgia and elsewhere in the Caucasus [Chikovani 1972: 252-8; Shamanov
1994].[22]

In view of the long history of
contacts between the peoples of the Caucasus and those of the steppes
to the north, contacts which go back at least to the Bronze Age and
probably further into the past [Gadzhiev 1991; Gej 1996], and the
evidence of IE loanwords borrowed by Caucasian languages at various
periods [Klimov 1991; Nichols 1997; Tuite/Schulze 1998], historical
links between the IE and Caucasian storm-god complexes should be no
cause for surprise. At the same time, certain steppe-IE motifs appear
to be absent, or nearly so, in the Caucasian ethnographic record, or
present but in significantly transformed guise. The motif of enmity
between the storm god and a serpent or monster guarding a valued
resource (typically, livestock) does appear here and there in Caucasian
folklore, but in general, the serpent plays a less uniformly negative
role than in the IE cultural area. It is a particularly striking fact
that the very name of the Circassian lightning god, Shyble, means
literally "horse-serpent" [Charachidzé 1981a], and as was
mentioned above, the Kabardians imagine him in the form of a fiery
serpent. The pouring of milk on the spot where lightning struck, a
practice observed in Kabardia and Ossetia, may reflect the same
association between serpents and milk that Chartolani [1961: 198] noted
among the Svans, who believed that snakes liked "white" foods such as
dairy products, and who interpret the sighting of a snake by the hearth
as a sign of abundance.

Before going further, let us
review the principal points covered so far: Analysis of the choppa
rituals of the western Caucasus reveals a number of common features,
attributed to the deity of lightning and storms. In particular, this
god takes the initiative in choosing his own sacrificial victims, and
striking them with his thunderbolt. Those who survive are possessed by
the deity, and go into his service as prophets; those who die are
buried on the spot, away from the village. In general, anyone or
anything struck by lightning is regarded as "sacred" in the old sense
of the word: appropriated by a deity, and at the same time taboo, off
limits to humans. The choppa song and dance performed around the body
of
a lightning-strike victim is also used to provoke rain during a
drought,
and as a cure for certain types of mental illness. A description of
Caucasian Albanian religious practices by the geographer Strabo
indicates that the association between sacrifice, possession and
madness goes back at least two millennia in the Caucasus region.

III.2. K'OP'ALA, "DIEU
FULGURANT"?

In the first book of his
monumental History
of the Georgian people, the historian Ivane
Javakhishvili provided brief sketches of numerous figures from
traditional Georgian religion and folklore. He devoted two pages to
the Pkhovian xvtisshvili ("child of God") K'op'ala.
Most of the numerous legends and ballads featuring K'op'ala celebrate
his prowess as an ogre-slayer, who rid the Georgian highlands of the
fearsome man-eating giants who had until then oppressed the human
population. Javakhishvili noted in passing that the name of K'op'ala
resembles those of the Near-Eastern goddess Cybele and the Russian
Kupala, but as he saw little other basis for postulating a historical
link among them, he did not pursue the matter in any depth [1960 I:
97-98]. Charachidzé [1968: 340-1] cited Javakhishvili's
half-hearted proposal as though it had been intended seriously, then
flatly rejected it as completely unfounded. With regard to Kupala, he
could find little in the descriptions known to him (primarily supplied
by Propp [1963]), to support a link to K'op'ala. "Quant à la
ressemblance des noms," he continues, "elle repose, du
côté russe, sur un malentendu … Kupala signifie … tout simplement
'baptiste', renvoyant au chrétien saint Jean-Baptiste et
nullement à quelque divinité de l'ancien paganisme
slave" [1968: 341]. I will attempt in the following pages to
demonstrate that Javakhishvili's tentative juxtaposition of K'op'ala
and Kupala was not in fact as ill-advised as Charachidzé
claimed, and that further examination of the dossiers of the two
deities makes it look quite reasonable.[23]

One of these dossiers, that of
K'op'ala, has in fact been assembled and analyzed with exemplary
thoroughness by Charachidzé himself [1968: 337-433; 1981b].
Although K'op'ala is rarely linked to lightning in any explicit way,
it is significant that Charachidzé characterizes him as a "dieu
fulgurant" [1981b: 455], an epithet motivated by the numerous features
shared by K'op'ala and such Indo-European war-and-storm gods as Indra
and the Ossetic Nart hero Batradz. K'op'ala is physically the strongest
of the xvtisshvili, the deities created by the
supreme god Ghmerti, and in one ballad he is portrayed besting them in
a weight-lifting contest. Like his IE counterparts, K'op'ala, often in
the company of his comrade and near-double Iaqsar, wages a campaign of
extermination against the ogres and demons which once inhabited the
Georgian highlands in great numbers, slaying them with his massive
club. According to one legend, K'op'ala killed an ogre which had been
damming the Aragvi River with gigantic boulders in an attempt to
deprive the Pkhovians of water [Ochiauri 1991: 44; Vazha-Pshavela
1889]; this motif has numerous parallels in the repertoire of the IE
storm god.[24] According to
Charachidzé [1968: 428-431], among the core functions of
K'op'ala in the religious system of the Pkhovian mountaineers are
"circulation and mediation". K'op'ala (and Iaqsar) circulate between
the celestial, terrestrial and underwater realms, and undergo
transformation from human to animal and, finally, to divine form. One
especially significant component of K'op'ala's circulating and
mediating activity is the liberation of "trapped" souls [sulis gamoqsna]. Should a person die of
drowning or hanging, or be killed by an avalanche, the oracle of
K'arat'is-Jvari, the Khevsur shrine dedicated to K'op'ala, is summoned
to the scene. (This shrine is also known under the name "Soul-saver" [sultamqsneli]). The Pkhovians believed
that a soul trapped under a surface of water or snow, or stuck within a
cadaver with the throat constricted by a noose, could not escape and
risked capture by demons. Bearing the banner of the shrine, the oracle
would call upon the patron deity of K'arat'is-Jvari to liberate the
victim's soul and slay the demons that threatened it. A goat was
slaughtered with a back-handed stroke of the knife, as is considered
appropriate by the Pkhovians for an appeasement sacrifice to demons,
and its meat left uneaten on the spot, as an offering in exchange for
the soul [Mak'alatia 1935: 216]. Consistent with his function as a
liberator of souls, K'op'ala was also invoked to treat certain physical
and mental illnesses attributed to possession by demons, especially
cases of insanity [Charachidzé 1968: 405-422; Mindadze 2000:
202-206].

If indeed certain elements of
K'op'ala's character match those of Indra, Batradz and other
Indo-European "second-function" deities, others do not. The chief
enemies of K'op'ala and Iaqsar are ogres (many-headed man-eating
giants) rather than a wealth-guarding serpent. At the same time, a
mythical serpent [gvelisperi] does appear in the K'op'ala
cycle, but in a supporting, rather than adversarial, role. This
serpent is said to patrol the borders of the fields of hops used to
make ritual beer for use at K'op'ala's sanctuary of K'arat'is-Jvari
[Charachidzé 1968: 421-422].[25] In view of what was mentioned
above concerning the Circassian lightning-god Shyble, one wonders if
the serpent gvelisperi was once considered a
transformation of K'op'ala himself. The absence of lightning in
K'op'ala's résumé also represents a significant contrast
with its ubiquity in the portrayals of IE deities such as Indra. One
curious fact might help explain this seeming anomaly. According to a
Khevsur informant interviewed by Georgian ethnographers in the earlier
part of the past century, lightning was believed to have been created
by God to massacre demons. Hence any human killed by lightning was
thought to have been killed in error by a thunderbolt aimed at a demon
which went astray. As compensation, God would take the unintended
victim to his realm; therefore "whoever dies from a lightning strike
is happy in the Land of Souls" [Baliauri & Mak'alatia 1940: 53].[26]

Let us take the step — which
the reader has doubtless anticipated for some time now — of
juxtaposing the east-central Caucasian K'op'ala and the lightning gods
of the western Caucasus. In addition to some shared traits, such as
the power to cure mental illness, others appear to be in a relation of
inversion. As was demonstrated earlier, the west-Caucasian storm gods
seize their victims by lightning strike, and appropriate them UPWARD
into their celestial realm. A goat is sacrificed to appease the anger
of
a beneficial, but dangerous, sky god. In the case of K'op'ala, by
contrast, his function is liberate souls which have been captured
DOWNWARD by demons. A black goat is the sacrifice of choice, but in
Pkhovi it is intended to appease the demons, not the deity. Wacilla,
Shyble and the other lightning gods strike without warning, and seize
their "offerings" without awaiting the permission of the community.
K'op'ala, represented by his oracle, comes when called upon by people
to rescue trapped souls. Lightning, the instrument by which the IE and
west-Caucasian storm gods appropriate their victims, was imagined by
some Pkhovians as a weapon specifically directed against demons, not
people. As in the west, those killed by lightning-strike are believed
to end up in a special place in the afterlife, but for very different
reasons: the Ossetes regard them as victims called by Wacilla to his
side, whereas the Pkhovians regard their good fortune in suleti, the Land of Souls, as
compensation for their accidental death. The contrast between the sets
of representations is striking. In the Pkhovian imagination, K'op'ala
is not so much a lightning god as a representation of combative force
harnessed for the service of the community. In this respect he
resembles St. George rather more than Elijah.

III.3. K'OP'ALA, IAQSAR,
P'IRKUSH AND ST. GEORGE.

Of the various patron deities
commemorated in invocations, ballads and hymns, several are described
as naxorcivlarni, "former mortals" who were
granted divine status by God in exchange for service in the battle
against ogres. Chief among these are K'op'ala, Iaqsar, and the
mythical goldsmith and weapons-maker P'irkush [Ochiauri 1991: 41-45;
95; 155]. The features and activities attributed to Iaqsar are so
similar to those of K'op'ala that Charachidzé [1981b: 455]
characterized Iaqsar as K'op'ala's "hypostase".[27] Many Pkhovian texts designate
him as K'op'ala's sworn brother (modzme) or even as his genuine
brother [Ochiauri 1991: 128]. Both are celebrated for their superhuman
strength, granted to them by God to enable them to free the land of
ogres. Both undergo underwater shape-changes. In one cycle of ballads,
K'op'ala is depicted diving into a river and resurfacing in the form of
a deer. In another, Iaqsar pursues a one-eyed ogre who plunges into a
lake (usually said to be Abudelauris T'ba, outside of the Khevsur
village Roshk'a); Iaqsar dives in after the ogre and kills him, but
the ogre's impure blood blocks the surface of the lake, trapping Iaqsar
underwater. He is freed only after people clear the water with
the blood of a four-horned, four-eared ram. When Iaqsar reappears at
the surface, he has been transformed into a shining, winged deity. The
artisan P'irkush produced weapons used to slay the ogres. He was
himself
captured by the ogres, but later set free by Iaqsar. The association of
P'irkush and the heroes Iaqsar and K'op'ala was compared by Ivanov and
Toporov [1974: 148-163] to the motif of a Hephaestus-type blacksmith
who provides arms with thunderbolt-like characteristics to a
war-and-storm god, attested in the Greek, Scandinavian and Indic
traditions, but also outside of the Indo-European world. The theme of a
"Dieu de l'ouragan [qui] reçoit ses armes — l'éclair et
la foudre — de la part d'un Forgeron divin" occurs in ancient Egyptian
and Near-Eastern mythologies [Eliade 1977: 84-85]. Abkhazian tradition
as well associates the lightning-god Afy and the divine blacksmith
Shashw« (and metalworking in general, as in the proverb cited by
Ardzinba [1988: 277]: "the forge is a fragment of Afy").

Although there is evidence
supporting Ivanov and Toporov's postulated historical link of
K'op'ala, Iaqsar and P'irkush to the IE war-and-storm-god complex, in
the context of Pkhovian tradition these and other divinized heroes are
associated most closely with Giorgi, the Pkhovian St. George. The
various Transcaucasian St. Georges have as their principal function
the patronage and protection of men fulfilling their roles as
exploiters, for the profit of their communities, of the undomesticated
space outside of the village and its adjacent fields. St. George is the
protector of shepherds, hunters, travellers, and men raiding cattle
from their neighbors on the other side of the mountains
[Charachidzé 1968: 620; Tuite 1998]. The image of K'op'ala,
massacrer of ogres and idealization of masculine prowess, thus
considerably overlaps that of St. George. One informant interviewed by
the folklorist M. Chikovani went so far as to equate K'op'ala and
Giorgi: k'op'ala
igive c'minda giorgia "K'op'ala is the same as St.
George" [Chikovani 1972: 338], an identification earlier noted by
Javakhishvili [1960 I: 97-98]. Charachidzé noted a Pkhovian
invocation addressed to "the force of Saint George of K'op'ala" (dzalo c'minda giorgi
k'op'alesao),
which was called upon to defend those who "go in the spaces far from
home, who go far, who go to hunt" [Charachidzé 1968: 406, 445].
At the powerful Khevsur shrine of St. George at Gudani, the xvtisshvilni K'op'ala and Saneba —
likewise
a "patron des prédateurs (pillards et chasseurs)" — are invoked
as temporary replacements (moadgile) of Giorgi, should the latter
be for some reason unreachable [Charachidzé 1968: 470].

The identification of K'op'ala
and St. George in Pkhovi can be compared to the representations of the
various Elijahs and St. Georges in the western Caucasian belief
systems. In Rach'a and Ossetia, Elijah and St. George form a pair,
with related but contrastive functions. As mentioned earlier, the
Georgians of highland Rach'a prayed to Ilia for rain in times of
drought, and to Giorgi to protect their crops from hail. If the
powerful but often destructive Ilia — represented in many parts of
Georgia as a blind deity scattering rain and hail upon good and bad
alike — is the image of uncontrolled natural force, Giorgi represented
controlled, specifically masculine force, deployed for the profit and
defense of human society. Vielle [1997: 190-191] characterizes Ossetic
Wacilla and Wastyrji in comparable terms: the former as "la foudre
impitoyable", whereas the latter represents "la virilité
exacerbée". At the linguistic level, these two are the only
significant Ossetic deities whose names are prefixed by wac-/was- "saint" (Wastyrdji < *was-gergi), and the names of both are
taboo to women.[28] Wacilla, doubled by the
spirit
Tyxost (whom Dumézil considers the more direct continuation of
the ancient IE lightning-god in Ossetic religion [1978: 67-74]), is by
no means blind, and his functions, like those of other IE
second-function divinities, include fertility, rain-making and
protection against enemies. This last feature, as Dumézil notes,
overlaps the war- and defense-related role of Wastyrji. Partial overlap
of the representations of Elijah and St. George is in fact fairly
widespread in East European folk Christianity. The South Slavic Zeleni Juraj "Green George", for example,
whose festival is celebrated on 23-24 April, was invoked for
springtime fertility and protection of livestock from predators
(especially wolves) [Ivanov/Toporov 1974: 180-216; Koleva 1974]. At a
chronologically deeper level, there is evidence from several traditions
for the exchange of features between what some specialists in
Indo-European comparative religion have reconstructed as a Varuna-type
sovereign deity (associated with magic, prophecy, and the punishment of
oathbreakers with disease; the deity underlying Elijah), and an
Indra-type monster-slaying war god, overlain by St. George. The Greek
supreme deity Zeus is a notable example, having incorporated many of
the
attributes reconstructed for the second-function war god, including the
use of thunderbolts [Sergent 1997: 302-305; Puhvel 1987: 130-131]. The
Baltic and Slavic "divine striker" *Per(k)un- might represent the opposite
phenomenon, that is, a storm-and-war god taking over the attributes of
a first-function Varuna-type celestial sovereign [Jakobson 1985b]. In
the case of Pkhovian K'op'ala, however, overlap with the
representation of Giorgi has gone to the point of assimilation, at the
cost of those features of the west-Caucasian and IE storm gods related
to sacrifice, possession, and the unpredictable use of force.

The transformation of a deity
comparable to Ossetic Wacilla/Alardy and Slavic Perun/Kupala into
Pkhovian K'op'ala is highly significant. On the one hand, we have a
dangerous, unpredictable storm god who uses his thunderbolts to select
his own sacrificial victims — without waiting for the human community
to choose one for him —, and whose anger needs to be appeased by
additional sacrifice. Those victims offered to him, or slain by his
thunderbolt, are dangerously sacred, and cannot be brought back to the
village. On the other hand is a powerful deity who slays demons and
ogres for the benefit of humankind. Although it is not specified who
throws it, the lightning bolt as well is intended to exterminate
demons,
and therefore in general a useful thing. K'op'ala has the special
mission to free souls captured by demons, and bring them back to their
community, whence they can follow the normal trajectory to the Land of
Souls. Compared to his Abkhaz, Ossetic, and Kabardian counterparts,
therefore, K'op'ala appears as a thoroughly domesticated deity, a
reliable defender of the human community. Rather than capture souls,
he is always on call to free them from demons. Indeed, it is evident
that the negative aspects of the west-Caucasian storm gods have been
projected onto the Pkhovian demons, and only the positive features have
been inherited by K'op'ala. The derivation of K'op'ala from Kupala
might seem to some to be a highly speculative hypothesis, despite the
phonetic similarity between the names, and the various semantic
resemblances shared by K'op'ala and the divine personages discussed
elsewhere in this paper. What renders it more probable is its
consistence with what appears to have been a thorough-going
restructuring — one could even call it a reform — of the inherited religious
system in Pkhovi some centuries ago. This restructuring gave rise to
new conceptions of the priesthood, of the relation between human
society and the supernatural realms, and of sacrifice and possession.

IV.
The Pkhovian reform.

The provinces of Pshavi and
Khevsureti would, on the face of it, seem unlikely candidates to be
the last refuge of Caucasian paganism, a religious system still
relatively intact up until World War II and the mass resettlement of
the Khevsurs in the 1950's. Pkhovi, as these two provinces were called
in the medieval Georgian chronicles (and as I will refer to them here),
is situated only 100 km north of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, and the
local population speaks a variety of Georgian not very different from
the standard language of six or seven centuries ago. There is certainly
nothing remotely comparable to the extreme linguistic diversity of
Daghestan, or even that of western Georgia, where the Kartvelian
languages Mingrelian and Svan, and the unrelated Northwest Caucasian
language Abkhaz, are spoken by sizeable speech communities. The paradox
does not stop there. Svaneti was no less inaccessible from the lowland
west Georgian (Imeretian) capital of Kutaisi than Pkhovi is from
Tbilisi, yet the Svan elite participated actively in the early
medieval political formations of Lazica (4th-5th cc. AD) and Abkhazia
(8th-10th cc.), and subsequently in the Georgian kingdom united by
Bagrat III and Davit IV (11th-13th cc.). The more remote district of
Upper Svaneti alone, along the upper valley of the Ingur River, has
over one hundred Georgian Orthodox churches, almost all of them
constructed in the period from the 9th to the 13th centuries, the
golden age of Georgian feudalism [Taq'aishvili 1991].[29] I have argued elsewhere that
the traditional religious practices of the Svans, as attested in the
late 19th and 20th centuries, show the imprint of centuries of
feudalism, which persisted as a political and economic order until its
abolition by the Tsarist government in the mid-19th century [Tuite
1999]. Pkhovi, by contrast, is rarely mentioned by medieval
chroniclers, and when it is, it is usually characterized as a nest of
unruly pagans, which can only be pacified by the sword. Christian
churches are conspicuously absent, as is any evidence of the
implantation of lowland-style feudalism. The social and political
system was essentially classless and egalitarian — with one important
exception — up to the present day. Yet a closer examination of the
chants, ballads, and ethnographic descriptions of Pkhovian culture
reveals a surprising fact: Christianity and feudalism have in fact
left a profound imprint on the traditional religious system, but only
at the cosmologicallevel.

The nature of the
restructuring undergone by the inherited religious system in Pkhovi can
be best understood through a comparison with the traditional religion
of the Svans. As Charachidzé [1968: 109] noted, non-Christian
practices and beliefs observed in both Svaneti and Pkhovi are likely
to be very ancient, going back to the time of the separation of the
Svan language from the ancestral Proto-Kartvelian language in the
Bronze Age. The investigations of Bardavelidze [1957],
Charachidzé [1968], Virsaladze [1976] and this writer [Tuite
1999, 2000], among others, have uncovered a number of common features
which would appear to have been characteristic of the Georgian belief
system of four or five millennia ago:

(1) The contrast, or
opposition, of male-linked/divine "purity" and female-linked/corporeal
"impurity", the latter derived from an ancient representation of women
as inherently powerful, but threatening to male/divine "purity".
People, places and objects can be rendered more "pure" by the blood of
sacrificed animals, which contrasted with the dangerous, "polluting"
blood of women shed during menstruation and childbirth. Associated
with this notion of opposed principles of "purity" and "impurity" is
the seeming paradox that the survival of the community requires contact
and cooperation between them.

(2) A gradient hierarchy of
beings according to their degree of participation in the divine
principle, a factor which is susceptible to increase or decrease.

(4) Paired female and male
divine beings, of which the female circulates between the hearth (the
interior of domestic space, the "interior of the interior") and the
remote, uninhabited, unreachable outside ("exterior of the exterior").
Her male counterpart, usually named after St. George (Geo. Givargi, Svan Jgeræg), circulates between the
public spaces of the community (the "exterior of the interior") and
those outside spaces exploited for the profit of the community (the
"interior of the exterior"). For this reason, the various St. Georges
are invoked as patrons of hunters, woodsmen, travellers, warriors,
even livestock-thieves. The relationship between these two deities is
the model for an institution Charachidzé [1968: 101] called
"anti-marriage" (Geo. c'ac'loba, Svan ch'æ:ch'i:lær), which contrasts with
marriage on a number of parameters: it involves a temporary,
premarital relationship between a woman and man from the same
community, which must under no circumstances terminate in marriage or
childbirth [Tuite 2000].

The ancestral religion has
evolved along very different paths in Svaneti and in Pkhovi. In a
recent study of the impact of medieval lowland Georgian
socio-political hierarchicalization ("feudalism") on the religious
systems of the eastern and western Georgian highlands, I noted a sharp
distinction between the changes undergone by Svanetian traditional
religion — in reaction to the implantation of feudal institutions,
Orthodox churches and a local aristocracy from at least the 9th century
—, and those which occurred in Pkhovi, which "n'a jamais
été intégrée au système
féodale" [Charachidzé 1971: 45], despite the sporadic
incursions of royal troops bent on bringing them to submission. The
notions of Orthodox Christianity and feudal socio-economic organization
reached Pkhovi via transmission from neighboring tribes, some of which
had become nominal fiefs of the Georgian crown, although with minimal
impact on their traditional systems of land tenure and self-governance.
Lowland concepts also percolated into the mountains through the
mediation of satellite communities in the eastern Georgian provinces of
Tianeti and K'akheti, formed over the centuries by Pkhovians in search
of farmland, vineyards and pastures [Topchiashvili 1981, 1984]. Until
the mass displacements of the Soviet period, Pkhovians living at lower
altitudes maintained regular contact with the highland communities,
especially on the occasions of major festivals. The religious and
cultural centers remained in Pkhovi, although the major highland
shrines were linked to subordinate sanctuaries in the peripheral areas,
the resident xvtisshvilni of which were typically
designated as their "younger brothers". As a regime of land ownership
based on the hierarchical and personal relation between vassals and
lords, feudalism (Geo. p'at'ronq'moba, lit. "lord-vassality")
provided the Pkhovians with new concepts and terminology for imagining
the mutual dependency between humans and deities, and the relationship
of both to the land. To summarize very briefly, the hierarchy of human
and supernatural beings came to be conceived in feudal terms, with the
supreme deity (ghmerti) enthroned at a heavenly
court (ghvtis
k'ari), where
the xvtisshvilni ("children of God")
periodically assemble. These latter are divided into those created
divine by God (cit
chamosulni,
"descended from heaven" to found a sanctuary), and the naxorcivlarni, "former mortals", legendary
heroes who had been elevated to divine status by him[Ochiauri
1991: 14]. Like a feudal monarch, God divided the land among the xvtisshvilni and set them in authority
over
the people dwelling on their territory [Ochiauri 1991: 49, 53-55, 95,
129]. The xvtisshvilni are addressed as bat'onni "lords", the members of the
community refer to themselves as q'mani "vassals", a terminology
identical to that of medieval Georgian feudalism in the lowlands. The
patron xvtisshvili of each highland clan or
commune is believed to reside in a shrine, a complex of simple stone
building outside of the village. The shrine, its surrounding
territory, and a sizeable portion of the community's farmland,
pastures and forests are said to belong to the invisible "lord", being
designated xat'is
mamuli
"shrine's [hereditary] land" or xodabuni (another borrowing from the
lexicon of lowland feudalism, meaning "lord's land"). The shrine lands
were worked by the "vassals" collectively, with a sizeable portion of
the harvest retained by the shrine. The grain, considered sacred, was
stored by a shrine official in a special granary, and used to brew
beer and bake bread for communal feastdays. Should a "vassal" die
without leaving heirs, or emigrate from the community, the family
lands reverted to the shrine. The texts from Pshavi collected by
Ochiauri [1991: 39-40, 271-272] include accounts of a human overlord
from the lowlands transferring possession of an escaped serf to a
divine overlord in the mountains, and of two adjacent xvtisshvilni depicted quarreling over
possession of land and the peasants living on it.

The "feudalization" of
Pkhovian cosmology appears to have occurred in the context of a
generalized restructuring of the indigenous religious system, and a
monopolization of important social and religious functions by
specialist priests (qevisberi or xucesi, "elder") and oracles (kadagi, sometimes the same person as
the chief priest), recruited from specific lineages in each community.
In Svaneti, for example, many feastdays are celebrated within the home
or among a group of neighboring households (called lask'ær), and are presided over by
the elder man or woman of the host family. Prayers and the presentation
of offerings in public ritual spaces (mostly Orthodox churches, which
came into the possession of local lineage groups after the abolition
of feudalism) are the responsibility of household heads or
semi-professional "priests" (bap'ær) who were trained by
apprenticeship to a more experienced priest, and who serve at the
pleasure of the village council [Xaradze & Robakidze 1964: 86].[30] In Pkhovi, by contrast, the
household is far less often used as a ceremonial site, except during
the late-winter and spring season — corresponding to Orthodox Lent —
when the family members (usually the womenfolk) perform a series of
domestic rituals intended to appease or ward off potential sources of
harm. At other times of the year almost all ceremonies are performed at
one or another of the community's public shrines, under the direction
of the clan's chief priest (tav-qevisberi). All animal sacrifices were
performed by the priest or his designated assistants.[31] The two principal types of
sacrifice were the purificatory
offering of a
bull or sheep,
intended to make the sacrificer(s) more acceptable to the
purity-obsessed xvtisshvilni, and the propitiatory offering of a goat either to
deities of subordinate rank and ambiguous nature (the potentially
malicious dobilni, "sworn sisters" of the xvtisshvilni), or to "ogres" (devebi) and "demons" (eshmak'ebi). Note that in Pkhovi, as
informants have repeatedly affirmed, goats are never sacrificed to the male xvtisshvilni. This represents an important
contrast to the Abkhazian and Ossetian practice, mentioned earlier, of
offering goats to their most powerful male-gendered gods.[32]

The "sworn sisters", and
sometimes other types of subordinate spirits, are represented at each
Pkhovian shrine complex, with characterizations and functions
contrasting distinctly from those of the resident xvtisshvili. At some distance from the
latter's sanctuary, which is considered particularly "pure" ground,
off limits to women, are one or more shrines where offerings are
presented to such female spirits as the "Place Mother" (adgilis deda), the "Mother of God" (ghvtismshobeli), or the "sworn sister(s)" (dobili) of the xvtisshvili. Men, and especially women,
petition these deities for the health and fertility of people and
livestock, and for a safe childbirth. Although a source of benefit to
the community, the "sworn sisters" of the xvtisshvili are imagined to be capable of
visiting disease (especially childhood illnesses) upon people, as well
as preventing it, and, more importantly, as having a "demonic" side to
their character, which can surface at any time. At some villages in
northern Khevsureti are the ruined shrines of deities which "turn into
demons (eshmak'ad
gadaikceva)
when people stop praying to them. If earlier they could help people,
now they are only capable of causing harm" [Ochiauri 1988: 194-5].
These so-called "grounded" (gamic'rivlebuli) spirits are the residents of
shrines abandoned by the community who, angered by neglect and the
lack of offerings, turn into harmful beings of female gender believed
to inflict illness upon children who hazard too close to their ruined
sanctuaries. The same ambiguous, potentially demonic, nature
characterizes other supernatural auxiliaries of the Pkhovian xvtisshvilni. Some of these are believed
to be accompanied by invisible hunting dogs (mc'evarni) or an army of wolf-like
"enforcers" (iasauli), which they would unleash
upon "vassals" who somehow provoked their anger [Javaxishvili 1960:
136-137; Bardavelidze 1957: 22; Charachidzé 1968: 298-299;
Mindadze 2000: 146].[33] The guard snake (gvelisperi) which patrols K'op'ala's
sacred hops field appears to be a creature of the same sort. After
massacring the ogres, K'op'ala was said to have kept one alive,
chained up under a cliff at the end of a valley near Ak'usho. He would
use this ogre as an enforcer, releasing him to punish those who
incurred his wrath [Ochiauri 1991: 99].

What these auxiliary spirits
have in common is a close association with a male xvtisshvili, in whose shrine complex they
reside, and a dangerous nature which is ordinarily exploited by their
superior as an instrument of punishment. The two sides, beneficial and
harmful, of the lightning god of the western Caucasian peoples are
distributed between two contrastive and complementary sets of
supernatural beings in the Pkhovian religious system: the
positive-valued, exclusively male xvtisshvili, and their ambiguously-valued
female, animal or monstrous auxiliaries. As a preliminary working
hypothesis, which I intend to examine in further fieldwork in highland
Georgia, I propose that the segmentation of positive and ambiguous
divine traits, and their projection onto two sets of spirits, was an
innovation of the Pkhovian reform, consistent with the rigorous
"binarization" of religious and social ideology which gave rise to the
system described by 19th- and early 20th-century Georgian
ethnographers. This hypothesis offers a new perspective on the
soul-liberation function attributed to K'op'ala. The cluster of traits
comprising the representations of Wacilla and the other lightning gods
of the western Caucasus — random selection and appropriation of a
victim, whose soul will have a privileged relation to the deity, and
appeasement with a goat sacrifice — are divided between the Pkhovian
demons, who play a fundamentally negative role, and the divinized hero
K'op'ala, whose intervention is purely positive.

While the Pkhovian priests
preside at public rituals, the oracles are the power behind the
throne. The oracles, who were almost always men, communicated the xvtisshvili's instructions to the
community. He — or rather the deity speaking through him — selected
the shrine officials, chose the site for new shrine buildings,
diagnosed the cause of illnesses, and predicted the future
[Charachidzé 1968: 169-186]. Like the priest, he was subjected
to heavy obligations to maintain ritual purity; also like the priest,
he was selected directly by the xvtisshvili, although he was usually
patrilineally descended from previous oracles [op. cit., 122-123]. The
ethnographic accounts of a century or so ago, as well as those
collected by me in recent years, reflect an opposition — indeed, a tension — in Pkhovian representations
of the role of the (almost always male) oracle and the roles of other
types of possessed individuals, most of whom were female. Although
oracles went into trances, and some manifested the frenzied movements
and disordered speech (ghabushi) typical of possession, they
aquired a degree of control over their communicative function, and
could go into spokesman mode — with or without signs of psychic
agitation — when it was called for [op. cit., 153-154, 199-201]. Female
possession was usually diagnosed as punishment for some real or
imagined sin against the deity, and tended to be sporadic and
involuntary. In the highlands, women seers did exist, but their role
was limited to contact with the souls of the dead (mesultane) or the diagnosis of certain
types of ailment (mk'itxavi). In the lowland communities
of eastern Georgia, mostly former satellite villages of Pkhovian
origin, female oracles are fairly numerous, but they are viewed with
disdain and mistrust by highland shrine officials. As in the
highlands, these women regard their possession as punishment for sin
rather than as a sign of divine election [Bardavelidze 1941a;
Charachidzé 1968: 187-201; author's fieldnotes].

Consistent with the increasing
dominance of the priest and oracle in the religious life of the
Pkhovian community was an increased specialization of religious
knowledge, in the form of elaborate prayers and invocations (lengthy
and complicated texts containing lists of deities, often imbedded in
more-or-less garbled fragments from the Orthodox liturgy or the
Gospels), and precise norms concerning the performance of purifications
and sacrifices, the preparation of ritual breads, the handling of grain
from the shrine's fields, and so forth. This was expressed at the level
of social and religious ideology in the form of the thorough-going,
crystalline binarism — unequalled elsewhere in the Caucasus — that has
fascinated ethnographers for over a century. The shrine officials,
especially those with a lifetime vocation, were required to attain and
maintain a level of "purity" — avoidance of the proximity of women at
certain times of year, abstention from certain foods, regular and
costly purificatory sacrifices — that was beyond the reach of
rank-and-file community members. The increasing systematization,
regulation and specialization of the Pkhovian religious order, I
hypothesize, made the role of a lightning god with the properties of
Slavic Perun/Kupala, Abkhazian Afy or Ossetic Wacilla particularly
problematic. Such a deity represented, in effect, those aspects of
sacrifice and possession which the Pkhovian hierarchy sought to bring
under its control. The Indo-European and western Caucasian storm gods
struck whenever, wherever and whomever they chose, seizing victims
without waiting for the community to take the initiative of making a
sacrifice. They also took the initiative in selecting their prophets,
i.e. those lightning-strike victims who survived, and perhaps (as the
Abkhazian data implies) individuals suffering from certain mental
disorders. To conceive a divine being in such terms would imply
certain limits on the human community's control over exchanges with the
divine world, both in the form of sacrifice and in the form of
communication through authorized spokespeople. As a consequence of the
Pkhovian reform, in a sense, the gods retain the appearance of
omnipotence while in fact ceding some of their authority to specialist
priests and oracles drawn from particular patrilineages in the
community.

The socioreligious order
observed in 20th-century Pkhovi bears a certain resemblance to that of
what R. Hamayon has labelled "pastoral shamanism" in a diachronic
study of the religious institutions of the Buryat tribes of Siberia
[Hamayon 1996]. By contrast with the earlier "hunting shamanism", in
which the shaman, through his status as the "son-in-law" of
supernatural game-giving spirits, played an integral role in assuring
the success of hunters, in pastoralist Buryat societies the shamanic
function has been subordinated to a patrilineally organized
ancestor-based religious order. The primary ritual specialists have
come to be more like priests, responsible for making offerings of
domestic-animal meat and dairy products, or have given way to the
clergy of Lamaistic Buddhism. Of particular interest is the
peripheralization and feminization of shamanism among the Buryats: Most
shamans are now female, their sphere of activity limited to private
matters such as dealing with the troublesome wandering souls of people
who died unnatural or premature deaths.In
the case of the Caucasus, it should be noted that there is little
evidence of an institution comparable to Buryat "hunting shamanism",
although one might discern similarities between the Pkhovian ballads of
the goddess Samdzimari sharing the bed of certain legendary oracles,
and the Buryat belief that the shaman had a supernatural wife of animal
origin [Charachidzé 1968: 142-144; Hamayon 1996]. What is common
to both cases is the evident marginalization of "horizontal"
inspirational practices — those which are available, in principle, to
any member of the society, and which are marked by trance and
possession — in favor of the institution of "vertical" inspiration,
based on esoteric knowledge controlled by priest-like specialists, a
phenomenon which often accompanies increasing sociopolitical
complexification and centralization [Hugh-Jones 1996]. Although Pkhovi
remained a relatively egalitarian society in most respects, the
authority and prestige held by the chief priests and their oracles led
some Soviet-period ethnographers to employ such terms as "aristocracy"
or "theocracy" [Bardavelidze 1957: 34-36]. Some of this authority, it
appears, came at the expense of the peripheralization and feminization
of random (or self-selected) possession in favor of quasi-hereditary
oracles, accompanied by the "domestication" of a redoutable
thunderbolt-slinging storm god as K'op'ala, ogre-slayer and liberator
of lost souls. One wonders — and it is a question that goes far beyond
the modest bounds of this paper — whether the restructuration of
Pkhovian society rendered it particularly capable of resisting the
increasing hegemony of political formations to the north, south and
east, or whether, on the contrary, the restructuration was itself the
fruit of that spirit of resistance.

APPENDIX. Some thoughts on the etymology of choppa.

The origins of the lexeme choppa and its variants remain
uncertain. Several accounts specify that the meaning of this vocable
was unknown to the people performing the ritual, and Abaev qualifies
the Ossetic coppay as "of obscure origin" in his
etymological dictionary. Abaev conjectures that coppay contains a final "vocative" -ay, an element he has also
isolated in (w)onay, a vocable in the refrain of
a women's cloth-fulling song, formed from (w)on, the name of St. John, + -ay [1958 II: 228]. This would
lead one to suppose that copp- represents, or represented at
one time, the name or epithet of a divine being. In this final
section, I will undertake the preliminary investigation of a possible
source for choppa/coppay, following up on a suggestion
made to me by David Testen [pers. comm., 8 May 2000]. Testen wondered
if there could be some connection between choppa and the Ossetic verb root cæv-yn "beat, strike" [Abaev 1958 I:
306-7], which appears in the compound ærv-dzav-d- "struck by lightning" (with
assimilative voicing of the initial consonant). The etymology of cæv- is difficult to establish,
however, not for lack of possible cognates, but rather because there
appear to be too many, including a large number from outside of the
Indo-European family. Numerous Turkic languages have verb roots
descended from an antecedent *chap, denoting various sorts of
"noisy action" [Clauson 1972: 394; Räsänen 1969: 99], most
commonly involving striking or attacking. Abaev also mentions
Mongolian chab "beat" and Komi (Permic
branch
of Finno-Ugric) chap-yny "strike". Indo-European
examples include Persian châpîdan "plunder" (a loan from
Turkish, according to Doerfer [1967 III: 15-16]) and Russian capat´ "snatch, strike". Doerfer and
Clauson regard these roots as onomatopoetic in origin. Of similar
phonetic form and meaning are the expressive Indic roots grouped by
Turner [1966: 265, root #4863] under the lemma *cupp-/ co:pp-/ cump- "strike", e.g. Waigali chúp "wound", Bengali cop "blow", copâra "slap"; note also Bengali chop(a) "sudden attack", chopa- "to snatch" [S. Sen]. These Indic lexemes are
particularly close in form, including vocalism, to west Caucasian choppa. The IE, Altaic and
Finno-Ugric expressive roots described here have geographic rather
than family-specific distribution. They are attested within and around
the great central-Eurasiatic linguistic "spread zone" [Nichols 1992,
1997], which has been the site of the relatively rapid westward
expansions of IE, Iranian, Turkic and Mongolian, and perhaps other
language groups in the more remote past. In one form or another,
perhaps as an epithet meaning "the striker", a reflex of the
onomatopoetic Wanderwort chap-/chop(p)- came to be attached to the
lightning god of one of the steppe peoples — perhaps, but not
necessarily, Iranian-speaking — even as the IE root *per-(kw)-u- "strike" surfaced in the
names of Baltic Perkunas and Slavic Perun. In this way, chop(p)- "strike" was linked to the
West Caucasian lightning deity, as is still the case among the
Karachays, and thence to the song and round dance performed around his
victims.[34]

Topchishvili,
Roland. 1981.
sak'ult'o dzeglebi rogorc c'q'aro aghmosavlet sakartvelos mtis
mosaxleobis migraciis shesasc'avlad. [Cultic
monuments as a source for the study of the migration of the population
of the East Georgian highlands]. Masalebi sakartvelos
etnograpiisatvis XXI: 99-107.

[1]
The Caucasian "Huns" were "most probably" Turkic-speaking in the
opinion
of Golden [1980: 90-93, 259-261; 1992; pers. comm. 5 April 2000],
although the paucity of linguistic remnants militates against any firm
conclusion. According to Fedorov [1972], the state of Suvar, which
flourished in northeast Daghestan to the north of Derbent, in the
6th-8th centuries, was ruled by the "Huns". Archeological evidence
indicates consolidation in Suvar between steppe Turkic and indigenous
populations, a process also attested by the medieval descriptions of
"Hunnic" religion. Whereas the cult of a chief deity named Tengri-khan
is clearly of Turkic origin, the "tree worship" and certain funerary
observances described by Dasxuranc'i are attributed by Fedorov to the
Daghestanian tribes of highland Suvar [1972: 23-24].

[2]
This parallels the practice, noted by ethnographers in Ossetia a
century
ago, of washing the legs of a lightning victim in milk, and then
splashing milk on the spot where the victim was buried [Basilov &
Kobychev 1976: 152].

[3]
According to M. Mak'alatia [1979: 65-66], the ayerg´-áshoa
was also enacted by shepherds around a bonfire during mountain
rainstorms (perhaps to protect their flocks from lightning?).

[5]
Another variant of the song, performed when moving an animal struck by
lightning, includes the refrain "Vay et'lar! Aytar et'lar! Et'lar chophar" [Javaxishvili 1960:
122-3]. "Aytar" is the name of a seven-fold agricultural deity,
comprising the divine patrons of bovines, caprids, horses, dogs,
millet and the sun and moon [Bgazhba 1991]. Abxaz "Aytar" is probably
related to the name of the Mingrelian livestock deity Zhini (= "upper,
celestial") Antar, described further on.

[6]
This disorder is believed to have been sent as punishment for
non-observance of the interdiction of work on certain days of the week
(such non-working days are known elsewhere in the Caucasus as well).
Indeed, some Abkhaz families believe that their non-working days (amshshar) were the
days on which an ancestor was killed by lightning [Akaba 1967: 34].

[7]
Like Afy, Antswa is portrayed as a maker of thunder and lightning,
which
he (she? they? — the gender, even the number, of this divine personage
is a subject of debate among ethnologists!) uses to pursue demons
[Akaba 1991].

[8]
Akaba adds that this ceremony "is now only performed for women
afflicted
with chorea" [1967: 40-41].

[9]
In some provinces of the Caucasus (notably Pkhovi in the east, Abkhazia
in the west), the principal sanctuaries of clanic or tribal deities
are themselves located outside the village, which some Pkhovian
informants attribute to the deity's avoidance of the numerous sources
of impurity in the human community [K'ik'nadze 1996; ms.].

[10]
For reasons which become clear later, the sacrifical practices of
Northeast Georgian traditional religion will not be considered at this
juncture.

[11]
Domestic goats were by far the most numerous animals in the herds of
the
Abkhazians up through the 19th century [Inal-Ipa 1965: 206].

[12]
One well-known example from Georgian folklore where a round dance is
performed in commemoration of a person's death is in the Svan-language
ballad of Betgil, traditionally sung while dancing a solemn round
dance known as the samti ch'ëshxæsh [Virsaladze 1976:
113-114; Charachidzé 1986: 159-163]. The ballad tells the story
of Betgil, a legendary hunter, who chased a white deer or ibex into
the mountains, whereupon it suddenly turned into the goddess Dæl
(Dali), divine patroness of horned game animals. She accused him of
violating a promise he had made to her, and caused him to fall to his
death from the mountaintop. Each year the communes of Mulakh and Muzhal
perform the samti ch'ëshxæsh on the spot where
Betgil is said to have died, in order to bring rain. It may be
possible to uncover deeper connections between the Betgil cycle and
the choppa complex, but that attempt will not be undertaken here.

[13]
The 18th-century "Description of the Kingdom of Georgia" by Vaxushti
Bagrationi includes a brief account of the invocation of Wacilla [vachil] by the
Duals, an Ossetic-speaking population dwelling in north-central
Georgia: "they sacrifice a goat and eat the meat themselves, whereas
they stretch the skin on a tall pole and worship Elia, that Elia not
send hail upon them and give them the fruits of the earth" [Kartlis
cxovreba IV: 638-9]. Similar
ceremonies in honor of Elia, featuring a goat sacrifice and the hanging
of its skin from a pole, and performed to protect crops from hail or
excessive rain, have been described for the west Georgian provinces of
Rach'a, Guria, Imereti and Mingrelia; and also for the northeast
province Xevsureti [Mak'alatia 1987: 83; Ruxadze 1999: 97-107]. None of
these accounts, however, mention "choppa" or its variants, either as
the name of a round dance or as a vocable in a song.

[14]
In Karachay, the lumbering gait of a bear is described as choppu, choppu ète
ajlanady "choppu
delaja
xodit" [Karaketov 1995: 226].

[15]
Alardy is from Georgian Alaverdi, the name of an important East
Georgian cathedral dedicated to John the Baptist. Up to about a
century ago, one Ingush community located near Ossetian territory,
observed a festival in honor of a deity named Geal-erdy, whose
name is believed to derive from that of Ossetic Alardy. Unlike the
latter, however, Geal-ardy was invoked for a wide range of protective
functions essentially overlapping those ascribed by the Ossetes to
Wacilla. In a prayer cited by Kaloev [1989: 150], he is asked "to
protect [us] from hail, lightning, wind; do not render our labor
useless". Representations of smallpox in traditional Transcaucasian
folk
medicine manifest important parallels to those of lightning strike.
According to accounts cited by Mindadze in her recent PhD thesis [2000:
230-255], the disease-bringing bat'onebi dwell in heaven, "in
God's garden", were created by him (ghmertis
gamoshobilebi),
and are sent down to earth at his command. Death from smallpox was
considered a blessed event: the victim was thought to have been "taken
by angels" [angelozebma c'aiq'vanes]. According to one
informant from the west Georgian province of Lechxumi, a child taken
by the "lords" "goes to paradise, is an angel, and will be with the
angels" [bat'onebit rom gak'etdeba, samotxeshi midis, angelozia,
da angelozebtan ikneba]. The victim's coffin is painted red and
sprinkled with roses; mourning is forbidden, and women perform the
"Iavnana", a lullaby-like song believed to bring pleasure to the bat'onebi
[for the text of one of these songs, see Tuite 1994: 62-65]. The belief
that smallpox, unlike other diseases, was sent by God, and that death
from smallpox was in some respect a fortunate event, has been noted in
Russia and in the folk-medical traditions of many other European
countries. Of particular interest is the invocation of St. Barbara —
in Georgia, Hungary, Greece, Austria and elsewhere — to intercede with
God to cure the sick child [Bleichsteiner 1954; Bardavelidze 1941b]. I
hope to explore the smallpox complex in greater detail in future work.

[16]
Whereas the bodies of men were suspended from trees in earlier times,
those of women were consigned to the earth, and perhaps thereby into
the possession of a chthonic god or goddess.

[17]
Similarly, the neighboring Shilluk and Dinka tribes do not mourn
persons
killed by lightning, as their deaths are considered an honor.

[18]
Textual evidence indicates that in ancient Greece, as in the West
Caucasus, the bodies of those killed by lightning were buried at the
place of death, or left on the spot uncremated, the area being fenced
off (indeed, Plutarch believed that their corpses would not decay, nor
would dogs or birds touch "the bodies of those who have been struck by
Zeus") [Cook 1965 II: 22-23]. Some lightning victims may have
subsequently been accorded the status of heroes, as implied by the
inscription Dii Katabáte:i hé:ro:i Epikrátei
(to a certain Epikrates, "vom Blitz erschlagen und deshalb heroisiert")
[Nilsson 1941 I: 63-65]. Among the ancient Hittites, according to Haas
[1994: 183-4], "durch Blitzschlag zu sterben galt als ein besonderer,
vom Wettergott herbeigeführten Tod, der heilige Scheu hervorrief".
The burials of such victims were handled by a special "Mann des
Wettergottes", who then performed a propitiatory offering of a goat
[op. cit., 217].

[20]
Certain features of Wacilla, as well as of the Nart hero Batradz (the
original Man of Steel, a semi-divine warrior who descends upon his
adversaries like a thunderbolt), have been traced back by
Dumézil to the unnamed Scythian deity glossed by Herodotus as
"Ares" [Dumézil 1978: 19-90]. Although not considered one of
the chief gods of Scythians, the sanctuaries and festival dedicated to
"Ares" differ significantly from those in honor of the other deities.
"No images, altars or temples" are used in the worship of these latter,
according to Herodotus, and sacrificial animals (horses or cattle) are
slain and cooked following a set pattern. As for "Ares", a temple
dedicated to him stands "in every district"; each temple consists in a
vast pile of wood (a scarce commodity in the steppes), "having a square
platform on the top". "An antique iron sword is planted on the top of
every such mound: it serves as the image of Ares. Annual sacrifices of
cattle and of horses are made to it, and in greater numbers than to all
of the other gods". Furthermore, one of every hundred prisoners of war
is immolated at the temple of Ares, and their blood poured over the
sword. These human sacrifices conclude with a macabre but intriguing
gesture: "the right hands and arms of the slaughtered prisoners are
cut off, and tossed up into the air. Then the other victims are slain,
and those who have offered the sacrifice depart, leaving the arms
where they fell, and the bodies also, separate" [Herodotus History IV: 59-62]. Dumézil was struck by
the resemblance between the piles of brushwood in the above account,
and the enormous quantity of wood burnt by the Narts to temper the
steel body of Batradz and render him nearly invulnerable [1978: 30-32].
Other details, in may view, may have found distant parallels in the
cult of Ossetic Wacilla. The platform set atop the mound of wood in
Ares' "temple" may be continued by the platform used in the choppa
ceremonies; the pouring of blood over the sword might also be
historically linked to the widespread Caucasian practice of stretching
of the skin of the sacrificed goat on a wooden pole planted next to the
platform. There are of course no direct modern correlates of the human
sacrifices ascribed to the Scythians by Herodotus, but an echo may be
discerned in the traditional West Caucasian interpretation of death
from lightning-strike as tantamount to sacrifice (albeit at the god's
initiative). The throwing of the slain warrior's arms in the air — as
well as the leaving of their corpses on the spot of sacrifice — would
accordingly signal a belief that these victims, having been
appropriated (upward) by the deity, are off-limits to human society.

[21]
In the same passage, Dalgat [1893] relates the legend of a certain Aush, whose mausoleum was
regarded as a holy site, even though it was believed that Seli had
slain him with a thuinderbolt for an unwitting violation of the
mountaineers' code of honor.

[22]
Sometimes the dolls are used for the opposite function: among the
Khinalughs, a Daghestanian people of Azerbaijan, "during heavy
rainfall young people made dolls of boards (guzhul), which they dressed in women's clothing
and carried throughout the village while singing … that 'tomorrow the
sun will shine'" [Volkova 1994; on a similar ritual among the Aghuls
and Lezgins, see Ixilov 1967: 225]. The practice of jumping across
bonfires at the beginning of summer is likewise widespread in the
Caucasus, especially among the Lezgin peoples of Daghestan [Kosven et
al. 1960: 516; Ixilov 1967: 223].

[23]
Analysis of the ethnographic data concerning the Ivan Kupala complex
led
Ivanov and Toporov [1965: 146-147; 1991e] to propose that the name
Kup-al-a derives from an IE root *kwep/kup which they gloss
"kipet´, vskipat´, strastno zhelat´" (seethe, boil,
passionately desire), rather than Old Church Slavic ko)pati,
a possible borrowing from Latin compater or some other source
[Preobrazhenskij 1959 I: 412-4; Vasmer 1953 I: 695]. Recently,
however, Rix et al. [1998: 334] revised the reconstructed form of the
IE root claimed to be antecedent to Kupala (*kweH1p-
"sieden"), and in so doing separated it from both *kwep-
"hauchen" and *kewp- "(innerlich) beben"; Pokorny had grouped
reflexes of these three roots undcer the single lemma *kwe:p-/*kewëp-/*kwëp-/*ku(:)p-
"rauchen, wallen, kochen; auch seelisch in Aufruhr, in heftiger
Bewegung
sein" [1959I: 596-7].

[24]
Ivanov and Toporov consider the theme of a storm god liberating a water
source blocked by monsters to be a variant of the
storm-god-defeats-serpent myth [1974: 138-141].

[25]
Such fields are considered the property of the shrine and its patron
deity in Pkhovi, and the grain that is harvested from them is stored
in special granaries, which only a delegated shrine official can enter.

[26]
This does not appear any longer to be the most widely-shared view of
the
matter, if it ever was. According to the Pshav and Khevsur natives
interviewed by me, lightning death is treated like drowning or suicide.
The chief priest goes to the site of the tragedy and sacrifices a goat
in order to appease the "evil angel" (avi angelozi) believe to
pursue the souls of those who die an unnatural death. Either K'op'ala
or Iaqsar may be invoked on this occasion. The meat of the sacrificed
goat was tossed backwards over the priest's shoulder and left on the
spot for the demons. The sacrificers did not eat any of it. The
victim's body, if recovered, was then returned to the village for
burial in the cemetery [interviews with Thek'le
Badrishvili-Gosharashvili, July 1997; Pilip'e Baghiauri, 25 June 2000;
Tinatin Ochiauri, 30 June 2000; cp. Ochiauri 1991].)

[27]
The phonological shape of the name "Iaqsar" does not look Georgian. The
most promising source, as Abaev has demonstrated [1958-1989 IV:
224-225] is pre-Ossetic (æ)xsar "martial valor, force,
power" (< Ir. *xshaTra <
In-Ir. *kshatra-)
[cp. Dumézil 1995: 488]. The proposed derivation from the root
which was, among other things, the Indo-Iranian designation of
Dumézil's "2nd function" fits extremely well with the
reconstruction proposed here for Iaqsar's double K'op'ala.

[29]
Frequent contacts between lowland centers and even the most remote
valleys of Upper Svaneti go back at least to the Bronze Age, when
Svaneti was an important source of high-grade metals (especially
arsenic-rich copper and gold), giving rise to local, Svanetian schools
of metalworking and other arts.

[30]
As one Svan proverb puts it "the folk-doctor, the priest and the
blacksmith are for everyone" (akimi p'ap'i mushkit chimish li), that is,
they are considered specialized practitioners in the service the
community [Nizharadze 1962: 173].

[31]
Indeed, the ethnographic materials from a century ago imply that the
only meat eaten by Pkhovians came either from domestic animals
ceremonially slaughtered by a shrine official, or game animals killed
by a hunter (whose activities during the hunt in many respects
parallel those of a priest performing a sacrifice).

[32]
There is one exception described in the ethnographic record, which
merits a brief detour. In much of Georgia, especially in the lowlands,
St. Barbara is invoked in prayers for children sick with the
infectious diseases — especially smallpox — euphemistically known to
the Georgians as the bat'onebi, lit. "lords", since these
illnesses are believed to be sent by God himself [Bleichsteiner 1954;
Bardavelidze 1941b]. As in the traditional medical practices of many
European countries, St. Barbara is imagined as a patron of healing,
and in particular who intercedes for victims of smallpox and lightning
strike. One medieval Georgian hagiography, cited by Mindadze [2000:
254], characterizes her as "as a special helper of those sick from
smallpox (sak'utar meoxed q'vavilisa sneulebisatvis), in
accordance with her being a helper in times of fire and the appearence
of lightning (cecxlisa zhamisa
da mexisagan gardachenisatvis),
and in general as a protector from unexpected death". In Pkhovi,
however, prayers in times of a smallpox outbreak are directed not to
St. Barbara, but rather to the powerful male-gendered deity K'viria,
divine mediator between the remote supreme God and human society
("K'viria, whose tent is pitched in God's court, relieve us from this
illness spawned by God [es xtisagan gamashobili sarjielni]"). The
intervention of K'viria, rather than K'op'ala or Iaqsar, is
consistent with the belief that smallpox is brought by angels sent by
God himself, rather than by "demons" easily subdued by K'op'ala's
imposing physical force [Mindadze 1979; 2000: 246-252]. Should the
disease continue to spread unabated, a special ceremony is performed,
called saghmto-sak'viriao
"for God, for K'viria". Beer is brewed, and meat- and cheese-filled
breads ("plague offerings", zham-sac'ir)
are baked. A ram is sacrificed to God, whereas a goat (or kid) is
offered to K'viria [Mindadze 1979]. The choice of sacrifice to K'viria
reflects both his subordinate status relative to God, and possibly as
well an echo of the West Caucasian practices described earlier in this
paper. Goat sacrifice is also practiced at a handful of Pshav and
Xevsur shrines specifically dedicated to Elia, where the community
prays for the protection of their crops from hail and adverse weather.
At the small Khevsur shrine to Elia near Xaxabos Jvari, a goat-kid is
sacrificed on the second day of the principal summer festival of
Atengena (late July). The meat is cut from the bones without breaking
them, then cooked. After the goat meat has been eaten, the bones are
collected and set inside the goat-skin, which is hung from a long pole
on a mountain-top. The intention is remind the subordinate spirits who
bring hail that "a goat-kid has been killed for Elia, and therefore
Elia does not give them permission to destroy the crops, for he is the
chief patron of the sky and clouds (ca-ghrubelt
uprosi mmartveli)" [Ruxadze 1991: 97-107].

[33]
The term iasauli, which referred to a type of agent sent to
enforce royal decrees in medieval Georgia, is ultimately from Mongol jasa'ul,
an assistant or adjutant officer [P. Golden, pers. comm.]

[34]
Possibly related to choppa(y)
is the name of a round dance known in western Iran and Kurdistan as
[Persian] chupi
"tanec s platkami (rasprostranën v zapadnoj chasti Irana,
ispolnjaetsja muzhchinami i zenshchinami, stavshimi v krug)",
[Kurdish] çopî "(juzhno-kurdskoe) tanec s
podprygivaniem" [Miller 1960: 167; Kurdoev 1960: 173]. One intriguing
clue is the use of the latter word in the expression chop” chemer bestin
"gather round corpse for mourning dance" [Wahby & Edmonds 1966],
which suggests a link to the performance of the choppa dance
around the body of a lightning-strike victim. Little more can be said
concerning such a link without more detailed descriptions of these
dances and their antecedent forms.